AFTER THE END
by tashkent
Summary: #CANON# After the Battle of Hogwarts ended, the magic community happily celebrated Voldemort's end, but the deaths lacerated all the families. Harry, overwhelmed by the consequences, escaped to France for a start over. #Translated from original fic in spanish: /s/4510537/1/Despues-del-Final#
1. Chapter 1- Escaping

**Chapter 1: Escaping**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!**

**1- Escaping**

The sun slowly set beneath the horizon of an extraordinary blue Mediterranean, offering an imposing spectacle of yellow and orange colors. Finally, disappeared and for a few moments the shades magically shone until they gradually began to fade away.

Harry contemplated the magnificent event sitting on the small balcony of the hotel room in Toulon, which offered a beautiful panorama worthy of the best postcards. However, the spectacular setting of the sun only ended up sinking him into sadness, plucking a tear from his glassy eyes. With a bitter smile he remembered his birthdays in his uncles' house before he knew he was a wizard. They were days without meaning for him, since they mistreated him like any other day or ignored him totally, as if he wasn´t alive. But that day, 31st of July, was by far the worst of all his birthdays.

He was alone, all alone in France, an unknown country to him. It was what he was looking for, after all: to escape, to isolate himself from the magical world and to search for solitude. But this loneliness was depressing him, crushing him to the ground and wouldn't let him breathe. Sometimes, during his self-exile in a little town in the outskirts of Toulon (more than two months by then), he thought he was wrong and should not have left England, but the dreadful memories fell over him and drove away any intention of returning, plunging him into more guilt and sadness. But he wanted something different for his 18th birthday, he didn´t want to spend that day isolated and depressed. So he decided to leave his confinement in the new house he bought in France and rent a hotel room on Toulon, in the coast of the Mediterranean to try to escape his depression, surround himself with unknown people and enjoy the sun and the beach. However, the harsh memories of the last battle and its horrible consequences didn´t stop haunting him as Voldemort and the death-eaters haunted him for years.

_"Harry, what are you talking about?" Hermione asked, frowning and watching her friend astonished._

_"What you heard." said Harry laconically lying on the couch. The house of his parents in Godric Hollow, where he was temporally living since the end of the battle, was poorly illuminated by the morning sunshine, as all the blinds were closed._

"_Leaving England?" Asked Hermione again, still too astonished to believe Harry´s words. "When did you decide such a thing?"_

_Harry didn´t say a word._

_Hermione was stunned, her gaze charged with surprise and disbelief. After several attempts to say something and closing her mouth, she managed to coordinate her words._

_"We've seen you in a bad shape these last few weeks. We thought that with time you would recover and you could assimilate everything, but leaving England..." _

_She shook her head and continued after taking a breath, she was deeply affected. "It's too drastic a decision, I need you... we need you, Harry, for Merlin´s sake!"_

_There was only silence. Hermione prayed that her soul mate was considering his decision. She stared at him with her nerves about to explode, but Harry seemed dejected. His glasses hid his eyes, she had to get closer to him, so she crouched down in front of him and put her hands on the boy's knees. She was surprised to notice tears coming from his green eyes, which made her suffer a feeling of infinite bitterness; she almost never saw Harry cry._

_"Harry, I know a lot of things have happened since the end of the battle," Hermione said with a choppy voice and flooded eyes, "we all lost loved ones and friends, but we need to stay together to get ahead"._

_Harry turned his head away as only gesture. She didn't know everything that was mortifying him, but she guessed right with what tortured him the most: the deaths, the many deaths of loved ones, friends, students and people. All killed during the battle with the darkness of Voldemort and his followers in a battle he led to Hogwarts in his desperate attempt to destroy Ravenclaw's diadem._

_He remained silent, not even looking at his friend._

_Hermione sensed that her attempt was not working, and the anguish overflowed her into tears like she had almost never cried before. She was going to lose her best friend, her soul mate, he was going to escape to France and she won´t be able to deal with that. She had to recover and try to convince him again._

_"Harry, look at me, please." She begged with a thin voice. "Harry, I understand..."_

_"NO, YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND!" he yelled, looking to her eyes. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE ME, OR WHAT I FEEL NOW, YOU DON'T KNOW!"_

_Startled by Harry's abrupt response, Hermione fell back and sat on the floor with her eyes wide open from surprise. "Harry, I know I don't, I just..."_

_"NO ONE KNOWS! EVERYONE IS SO HAPPY THIS IS OVER! BUT WHO IS BEING CHASED AND BLAMED FOR ALL THE DEATH? WHO?"_

_"Harry, please, you know that the Prophet..." The girl's voice trembled, Harry finally was reacting but his outburst of rage lacerated his young friend._

_"THE PROPHET ONLY PUBLISHED WHAT EVERYONE THINKS, WHAT I THINK! THEY ARE RIGHT HERMIONE, I WAS THE ONE WHO DRAGGED THEM TO DEATH, WHO CONDEMNED THEM TO FIGHT FOR THEIR LIVES!" Harry trembled with rage and frustration, and his misery wounded his friend's soul heartbreakingly. "THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! I WAS MEANT TO DESTROY THE HORCRUXES AND FIGHT WITH VOLDEMORT, NOT THEM! FRED, REMUS, TONKS, COLLIN AND MANY, MANY MORE DIED BECAUSE I DID NOT SURRENDER IN TIME! DOBBY DIED TO SAVE US! MY PARENTS DIED TO SAVE ME! SIRIUS DIED TO SAVE ME! MAD-EYE DIDN'T DO ANY BETTER, DID IT? EVEN SCRIMGEOUR WAS KILLED FOR PROTECTING ME!"_

_Without realizing it, Harry had risen from the couch and walked from one side to the other, possessed by a eruption of fury and nerves that exploded at the worst moment and with the person who least deserved his screaming. But he couldn't help it, the sequence of images of the funerals and the lives destroyed by that crazy maniac were carved into his mind. He watched Hermione lying on the floor with her arms hugging his legs crying: not even that image could stop him._

"_Harry! Please! It´s not all about you! You are guilty of anything! It was the war and those sick maniacs who…"_

_"How do you think I felt when the parents of students killed in battle scolded me and blamed me during funerals?" Harry interrupted her. He was no longer screaming, but his voice became cold and full of guilt. "They were proud, Hermione, but the loss of their children destroyed them!"_

_Hermione raised her head to look at him, frightened by the sudden change in Harry's voice. "No one defended me from the anger of the parents, Hermione, because everyone thinks the same and I don't blame them, because I think the same too". The boy grabbed the two backpacks on the couch, which contained everything he needed, including all the Muggle money he had withdrawn from Gringotts the day before. He needed nothing more, at least nothing magical except his wand, the Marauder's map, the cape and an album of magical photographs._

_"You can live without me, you don't need me anymore. But I can't live here anymore." Harry looked at the girl, who was still sitting on the floor, crying. "Goodbye Hermione, someday I hope you'll understand why I'm doing this." And looking at her great friend for the last time, he concentrated on his destiny and disappeared with a slight "pop"._

_"Harry?" Hermione got up as if she had springs in her butt. "HARRY DON'T GO! HARRY NO..."_

Memories weren't going to leave him alone anymore; clearly almost three months since the Battle of Hogwarts weren´t enough time. Of all, this one in particular was the one that hurt him the most, besides all the dead people he knew. He regretted screaming at Hermione like that, hurting her with his anger and guilt, making her cry and abandoning her when she was begging him to stay. But he had already decided to leave by then, he could no longer live among the magic community anymore.

He only allowed to communicate with his "old" life by writing to the Weasley´s and Hermione from time to time, but only to them. Fairly short letters informing he was fine and telling them some few detail of his "new" life (with no specifics that could discover his location), and his wishes that they were doing well and that he was very sorry for leaving that way. It hurt him deeply to write to them, especially to Hermione, perhaps the only one who really understood everything he felt. Coincidentally, at that very moment he was touching her image with her finger, where she was smiling and waving with one hand in a magic picture of his best friends.

The day was over and the night was progressing over the south of France. Thinking of his friend made him decide to go the next morning to Gap, a small village near the French Alps (and close to the village he was actually living) that had a tiny magical community, the only one in the region. There in Gap he used to get some parchment and send owls, as there was no such thing in Toulon (where the hotel he was hosting were, a seaside city over the Mediterranean) or in _La-Valette-du-Vars_, a small community in the outskirts of Toulon and the place where bought a small house, sure to be away from anything to do with magic. This time he would write to Hermione about how much he loved her and missed her, hoping she wasn't still too hurt by his outburst of rage and his sudden runaway from England. Extremely depressed, he decided that the day, his birthday, was over, so he got up and went to his bed to lie down without even undressing and hoping to get asleep as quickly as possible_._


	2. Chapter 2- Gap

**Chapter 2: Gap**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!**

**2- Gap**

_"What do you mean?" asked Harry, barely containing his anger._

_"You know!" his redheaded friend shouted back. "I don't know what the hell is wrong with you!"_

_"Then enlighten me Ron". His anger dissipated and he replied with a coldness that frightened his friend and Hermione._

_"You are...you are..." he hesitated, with his red ears. He knew Harry perfectly. He could control his friend during an explosion, but when that coldness invaded him..._

_"Irrational!" He encouraged himself to complete. "Since it all ended, you've done nothing but lock yourself up and escape, you've devastated Ginny, and you've mistreated and avoided everyone who stood in front of you!" He continued, emboldened to be able to vent all his fury. "You have discharged your anger on Hermione and me several times! Leave Hermione alone at least!" At this point, Ron was screaming at loud voice, and his whole face was a big red spot._

_They were arguing standing in a corner of the kitchen. The air in the Burrow could be cut with a knife, and Molly and Arthur sat at the table without daring to interfere; Ginny had retired angrily to her room a few minutes earlier. They had decided to invite Harry to lunch to try to reconcile the trio, but things were not going as planned._

_"Ron, calm down, will you? Harry hasn't done anything to me!" Said Hermione with her glazed eyes and a barely audible thread of voice, terrified by Harry's face. She knew that her friend's limit of patience was being tested._

_"And why are you so angry?Are you mental?" Ron insisted, ignoring his girlfriend. "Why do you keep using Hermione and me as your stooges? And why the hell did you make Ginny suffer so much? Because you're the bloody hero of the Magic World?"_

_"I told you don't understand..." Harry tried to say with his teeth and his fury breaking through his throat, but he was interrupted by his friend's screams._

_"Of course! I'm Harry Potter's stupid friend again!"_

_Harry closed his eyes, trying to forget that last sentence._

_"Ron! Enough!" Hermione begged with a broken voice, she knew something was about to break...or explode._

_"Are you still furious about the Prophet?" Ron raised his voice more and more._

_"You shouldn't have mentioned Voldemort's immortality or the objects we destroyed..." Harry whispered in rage, but was interrupted again._

_"AND I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE HORCRUXES! NOTHING! DO YOU WANT ME TO SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU?"_

_"DO YOU THINK THE PROPHET'S IS FULL OF IDIOTS? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES THEY CAME TO ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT IT? I'VE BEEN CHASED, INVESTIGATED AND SPIED ON SINCE YOUR INTERVIEW FOR ALMOST THREE WEEKS!" Harry exploded, and tried to calm himself by taking a breath. He definitely didn't want to lose his temper in the Burrow._

_"WELL, I'M SORRY, BUT I DIDN'T MEAN TO!" Ron's ears were going to explode. "I DON'T HAVE AS MUCH EXPERIENCE WITH REPORTERS AS YOU DO!"_

_"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TOLD THEM ANYTHING! NO ONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT HORCRUXES OR THE HALLOWS!" shouted Harry._

_"I HAVEN'T TOLD THEM ANYTHING! NOTHING!"_

_"Ron, please don't shout anymore! Many things have happened..." said Hermione tearing with a knot in her throat._

_"DON'T SHUT ME UP! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DEFEND HIM?" Ron shouted more and more furiously, pointing to Harry. "DO YOU FEEL MISUNDERSTOOD, MISERABLE PERHAPS?" The redhead was beginning to touch Harry´s weak spots. "JUST SO YOU KNOW, WE'VE ALL LOST FAMILY AND FRIENDS!"_

_At that point, both Molly and Arthur were startled by two reasons: the aggressiveness of the discussion and Harry's murderous silence. Hermione covered her mouth in a gesture of disbelief and panic, she thought she was in the eye of the hurricane._

_Ron turned furiously and looked out of the window. After a few moments of nodding, he continued. "The universe does not rotate around you, Harry, not anymore. Voldemort is dead, if you want to keep acting like a victim, do it. And if you want to keep poisoning yourself, well, that's fine! But leave Hermione and me alone, and my family! And stay away from Ginny!"_

"_You´re and idiot, Ron." Harry snorted in anger._

"_GET LOST!"_

_Harry stormed out and walked steadily to the limits of the protective barriers of the Burrow. Before he disapparated from there, he waited a few seconds without looking back. He hoped for something that didn´t happened and shaking his head he went away, regretting for the first time in his life that he had come to the Burrow, his second favorite place in the world._

*****HP*****

"Bloody hell, not again!" Harry muttered as soon as he opened his eyes and saw that he had appeared in the wrong place.

Those horrible memories kept tormenting him and he couldn't leave them behind.

He already knew Gap and he should know how to apparate in the outskirts of the village, but he was still failing in his destiny as the last four times he had gone there in the last two months, and this was the fifth. He wanted to apparate on the hills just north of Gap and walk in like a muggle to not attract anyone's attention, but he couldn't. He still remembered the previous one, when after four attempts he had to ask for directions from an older man riding a bicycle on a narrow paved road in the French countryside, far away from his destiny.

"Bloody Twycross and his bloody three D's." He closed his eyes and concentrated on the slope of the small hill north of the beautiful village. After a few moments of darkness and not being able to breathe, he opened them again to discover that he was on the slope of a much higher hill, on the opposite side of the small valley where Gap was. Fearful of getting splinched because of many failed attempts, he decided to walk the few kilometres separating him from the village.

"Why can't I apparate properly? I had done it before, I could not have forgotten."

Like the previous times he had failed, Harry began to think hard looking for an explanation. He turned the matter over and over again, not wanting to acknowledge that most of the time it had been with Hermione; yet he remembered the time he took Dumbledore to Hogsmeade from the caves, or the time he escaped from the Malfoy Mansion with Dobby.

"They were cases of extreme necessity," he thought as he continued down the hill dodging rocks and small bushes. "Maybe I'm not concentrating enough, maybe..." Harry stopped worried about a strong hunch. He instantly reached into his backpack, pulled out his wand, and looked around making sure no one was there.

Wand in hand, he aimed at the air as he hadn't done for almost two months and closed his eyes for a happy memory.

"_Expecto Patronum_!" The wand remained impassive. Again he closed his eyes and concentrated on another happy memory, and cried out loudly.

"_EXPECTO PATRONUM_!" The wand remained undisturbed, though Harry realized what was happening.

For the third time, he closed his eyes and tried to remember his friends, shouting with all his might. "_EXPECTO PATRONUM_!" Despite the great effort, he only got a poor cloud of silvery steam that disappeared a few seconds later.

Confused and with glassy eyes, he sat down on a flat stone watching the wand in his hand with concern. "It can't be broken, the Elder Wand repaired it, I used it myself later."

No, Harry knew it wasn't that. When he tried to remember the feelings of happiness and relief at the end of defeating Voldemort and the bustle of people around him congratulating him, the bloody images of dozens of lifeless bodies lying in the same Great Hall prevailed and filled him with anger and sadness.

It didn't go well when he wanted to focus on his friends: he only managed to remember the bitter fights with Ron and Ginny, and a Hermione sitting on the floor crying disconsolately as he yelled at her before running away to France.

"I need happy memories to cast a _Patronus_, I'm not losing the magic..." He aimed to a nearby rock. "_Accio_ rock!" The rock shook and trembled, but did not move from its place.

Something was not right inside him, with his magic. He rose and resumed his march, noticing with some curiosity how little he cared.

He had had breakfast at the hotel he was staying in Toulon and gave the key of his room very early that morning foreseeing obstacles in his apparitions, but had never calculated to arrive at his destination that late at midday. Tired, sweaty, and with his hair more agitated than ever Harry finally walked down a narrow winding alley away from the muggle commercial center, and after about ten minutes he reached a small square surrounded by medieval buildings covered by thick trees, tables, and chairs.

Unlike London, Gap had no Diagon Alley simile, it was not even a magical community separate from the rest of the village or did it have an entrance like the one of the Leaky Cauldron. Around the square several wizards and witches had their stores, and coexisted (though furtively) side by side with the muggles establishments. It was a nice and beautiful place where no one would ever think of finding magic people, as they dressed and acted like muggles. Several alleys ran into the square, so there were always tourists and curious people who wandered around observing the shops or having breakfast or lunch at the tables. Harry liked that place very much, and each time he came to send an owl he would sit down to eat and watch the people walking by, looking for potential "magicians". But what he liked most about the place was that it went completely unnoticed, without anyone even looking at him.

Harry went to the only magic store he had entered since he arrived in France. The owner of the shop, Mr. Laffitte, sold all sorts of Gap sweets and souvenirs to tourists, but at the back of the store he ran a hidden small owl service. The magic community there was small, so he only had two owls available for international deliveries. One was snow-white and yellow-eyed.

"Bonjour Monsieur Martans! Vous êtes bien?"

"Tres bien, merci beacoup." Harry replied with one of the few phrases he had learned. He was always slow to respond, because he had not yet been able to get used to being called by his "new" identity: Jean Martans, a name he saw in a newspaper just before acquiring his new small house in the outskirts of Toulon.

"Oh, you probably want to use the post, don't you?" asked Mr. Laffitte, with a smile on his face and a wink of an eye, to which Harry nodded. "Come on, this way." Harry knew the routine and followed the man to the back. Mr. Laffitte was old, about 70 years old, and his hair was fuzzy and gray, somehow like Ollivander, though his English was very limited and hard to understand. On the way, he could not help but notice a newspaper folded correctly on a table, and in spite of the darkness he could see that it was the "_La Provence Matin_" and that its cover was covered almost entirely by the photograph of some people...who were moving. Subtly shaking his head, Harry reached the back of the store, an open space with the perimeter covered by bushes and large cages on his right.

"Here's Chantelle, your favourite owl monsieur." The owl stood on a round wooden bar, and its white plumage shone in the sunlight. It was separated from the rest of the smaller owls, probably used for local deliveries. Harry found it amusing to think that the owl did not want to mix with the others.

"Hello Chantelle, would you like a long nice ride to England?" He muttered as he gently stroked her with his fingers and a bitter smile. Memories would definitely never leave him.

After a long time, Mr. Laffitte came back with some blank sheets of paper and a pen and extended them to Harry, who was still absorbed looking at and caressing the owl with big, beautiful yellow eyes.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" asked the old man. "Someday you'll tell me why the sadness on your face?"

Harry smiled. The same questions with the same words every time he came to send correspondence.

"I used to have a very similar owl. Her name was Hedwig." He replied laconically.

The old man nodded, understanding. "I must suppose she's dead, isn't she?"

Harry only nodded.

"All right monsieur, take your time to write your letters."

When Mr. Laffitte was leaving, Harry asked him, "Excuse me, is Claudette available? I need to send two letters this time."

"Oui monsieur, in that case it will be 700 francs, but I'll leave it at 600 francs." That said, he turned around and went to the front of his store. Harry always thought the service was expensive (about 25 pounds per owl) but as he always had one of his own, he never knew (or did not remember) how much the owl postal service cost in England.

He looked with his eyes for the ramshackle wooden table that served as a support for writing his letters. The one addressed to the Weasleys was quick, even with the addition addressed to his friend Ron, but writing Hermione's this time was being hard to him. He finally decided and finished it, and after placing the letters in the special compartment within her foot he stared at the two owls flying north, wishing that one of those letters the white owl was carrying to be read and not thrown into the garbage can.


	3. Chapter 3- The letter

**Chapter 3: The letter**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!**

**3- The letter**

After the owls disappeared into the sky, Harry sighed and headed to the front of the store. He felt liberated, he didn't remember ever writing such a letter to anyone, but definitely expressing his feelings and anxieties in that way seemed to help. He smiled at the thought that Hermione was still helping him despite the distance, this time to alleviate the heavy psychological burden he had been carrying for some time. The knot in his throat that he felt when writing it had already disappeared, and more animated he crossed the shadowy corridor that led to the front, again noticing the newspaper on the table.

He located Mr. Laffitte, who was ordering small boxes on shelves, and after he asked him if he needed anything else, Harry said:

"Mr. Laffite, can you tell me where I can buy a newspaper?"

The man saw the boy's hand pointing to the newspaper in question, and smiled. Harry thought he saw a notch of satisfaction, as if he had waited a long time for that question.

"They send it to me by subscription, it's not a newspaper you can buy anywhere."

Having said that, he went into the corridor and a few moments later returned with the newspaper in his hand, opened it and handed it to Harry.

"Here you are. It's two days old." Laffitte said, interrupting an attempt at denial by his client.

Harry took it and looked at the page he saw before. His eyebrows arched in a gesture of surprise as he saw his own face in a half-page photograph. He couldn't understand the title or the note as it was in French, but he remembered the context of that image. It had been taken in the courtroom of the Ministry of Magic, during one of the many hearings against the death-eaters or against those who claimed to have been victims of the _Imperio_ curse, shortly after the battle of Hogwarts. Every time he remembered those hearings and how some of the most perverse wizards or witches were saved from being sent to Azkaban arguing that they had acted against their will (he especially remembered a witch whose toad-like face he would never forget) Harry got heartburn.

Harry looked up, understanding Laffitte's smile, though he said nothing.

"Don't worry, Mr. Potter, I don't understand your reasons, but if you want to go unnoticed, it won't be me who finds out." Laffitte said, still smiling. He spoke English correctly and Harry always appreciated it, not too many people used to speak his language in France.

"You knew me? Why didn't you ever say anything to me?" he replied, feeling ridiculous. Apparently not even in France could he avoid being recognized, and he insulted himself for not having gone to Malaysia or even further.

"Oh, I did, for a couple of weeks I think. I have seen photographs of you several times in the paper, although I must admit that I never related them to you before, Mr Martans." He gestured in inverted commas when he said his false surname, and went on. "Perhaps I am too old to detect subtleties, but since the last time you came here was more than two weeks ago, I did not have the opportunity to show it to you."

Harry nodded without saying anything, obfuscated. He didn't know what to say. Would Mr. Laffitte think he was an outlaw? He liked the shopkeeper, he didn't want him to think he was a fugitive from justice.

"Hmm...sorry, Mr. Laffitte. I had no intention of hiding my identity from you. I came to France to escape ... from many things in reality. I assure you that I am not a..."

"Don't worry Mr. Martans, from what they published in the newspaper it is clear that you are not a fugitive from the magical law of your country." He added.

"This photograph is from May. Why did they publish this on August?" asked the boy.

"I don't know for sure. What I do know is that those trials seem to have been very important in England, as there continue to be repercussions on them." The old man put on a pair of glasses and focused his eyes on the note. "The next piece of news refers to a trial against ... hmm, here it is, against a certain Albert Runcorn, two weeks ago."

The news surprised Harry; he had hardly remembered that name again. He had replaced him when the three of them broke into the Ministry in a desperate attempt to obtain the Slytherin's locket.

Harry's head was thinking fast. He didn't remember anyone who related him to Runcorn or to the chaos generated during their escape.

"Can you tell me if this Runcorn was sentenced?" asked the boy, eager for curiosity. He clearly remembered that this sinister man seemed to be respected within the Ministry during Voldemort reign of terror, and he even remembered his interaction with Yaxley and Mr. Weasley's fury when he came across him in the elevator.

Laffitte read to the end of the note and said, "Well, it looks like he was saved from prison and set free." He looked up just to see the boy's gesture of hatred, and continued. "Apparently several witnesses affirmed that many…hmm ..._muggles_... (He gestured, not understanding the word) had escaped a death sentence thanks to him.

A mocking smile escaped Harry's mouth. It was he who had helped them escape, not that idiot pure-blood supremacy believer. But no one knew that, it was noticeable that the followers of Voldemort who at that time controlled the Ministry completely covered their intrusion very well.

Right now, another criminal who had surely committed atrocities and injustices was free, but this time the paradox was that thanks to the Polyjuice potion Runcorn had been saved from Azkaban because Harry risked helping some condemned Muggles, committing an act of good perhaps for the first time in his (Runcorn's) life.

Subtly shaking his head in disbelief about the events and their consequences, Harry said goodbye to Laffitte and left the store with the newspaper in his hands, disgusted by another immoral injustice.

*****HP*****

Several hours later, Harry sat down on one of the many wooden tables in the square in that remote Gap area, leaving several bags resting on the floor and sighing with fatigue. His feet ached from walking so much, as he had decided to walk around the town to try to forget the bad news of Runcorn. As he toured the historic part of Gap and its small commercial center (where he took the opportunity to buy some items and groceries he could not get in Toulon, such as several boxes of British tea and some small bottles of butterbeer), he was constantly looking at the newspaper he was holding in his hand, resisting to sit somewhere and check it out.

He was all sweaty because of that hot and dry day. It had been worth the effort and tiredness, for he had never been to the center of Gap or to the Luyen River. He liked the Cathedral very much, something like _Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Arnoux de Gap_ or something similar. But he especially liked the commercial center, and especially the Saint Arnoux Square, surrounded by beautiful constructions of the same medieval style as some photographs he had seen in books.

Again Harry had discovered himself trying to detect wizards or witches there, but it was impossible for him. At first he believed that the magic people of that little community of Gap knew how to dress muggle style and therefore went unnoticed. But it was much more likely that the magical population in France and particularly in Gap was scarce and concentrated in the square area. And he ended up being convinced when he remembered that in England the magic population was only a few thousand, distributed mostly in London and in some very small towns in the rest of the country like Hogsmeade, Ottery Saint Catchpole or Godric Hollow.

"Probably a few hundred less, because of Voldemort and his death-eaters madness." He reasoned corrosively with his sight lost somewhere on the other side of the square, as he raised his hand calling for the nearest waiter. In fact, Harry not only counted the dead in the final battle, but all those who in one way or another perished or were killed since his last return to the "physical" world a few years ago.

"Bon jour monsieur. Que voudriez-vous manger?" The waiter had taken Harry by surprise, immersed in his lucubrations and, as always, had to take a few seconds to answer. But what else could the waiter have asked?

"Bon jour. Un raclette et une bière s'il vous plaît."

"Tout de suite."

Harry always felt a certain pride whenever he could have an exchange of phrases and understand himself in French. He had never studied that language but more than two months in the south of France were helping him to begin (very slowly) to understand, even if it is the minimum necessary to make himself understood.

In an unconscious impulse, he reached into one of the bags and took out the newspaper. He had been waiting for several hours for that moment, not only because he wanted to read it sitting somewhere quietly, or because he wanted to try to understand the reading even though he was sure he would understand almost nothing.

He had decided to live for a while in France, far from the Magical World he knew, and that included not wanting to receive letters or news from anyone, not even magical radios or newspapers, although in the Toulon outskirts where he lived it would have been impossible to find it. As far as he knew, he was the only wizard for miles around, and he did not believe that there were magic people living in Toulon either.

Opening that newspaper and looking for news about "his" world meant that he was kind of giving up, that the power of his decisions could no longer withstand the onslaught of his curiosity.

He looked at the cover of the newspaper "_La Provence Matin_" and eagerly looked for the name of the town or city where it was published, but could not find it. The cover was half-occupied by a photograph he liked very much: some players dressed in the uniform of a Quidditch team from France called "Les Sauterelles Vertes. The title said something about the "Hautes Alps" league, and it was possibly the champions of that league. Seeing the image, Harry felt an intensification in his desire to play Quidditch professionally, and a tingling in his stomach as he recalled his games at Hogwarts with Griffindor.

The waiter suddenly appeared again, leaving the order on the table and standing there without saying a word.

"Merci beaucoup." Said Harry, and the waiter left. He still had the smile on his face from his memories of Quidditch's games, and when he began to remember the times when he shared the team with Ron and Ginny his smile faded and became a bitter rictus. He remembered all the games he had played and all those he lost because he was locked up in the infirmary or punished. Only twice had not been able to catch the golden snitch: when McLaggen broke his head with a bludger, or in that memorable match (not for the happy) against Hufflepuff where the dementors had knocked him down from his broom at great height and almost killed himself if it had not been for Dumbledore.

"Dumbledore..." He sighed, evoking his image in his mind. What was happening to him? His memories made him feel nostalgic and sad, since many of his dearest memories were related to people who had died or with whom he had fought. He had been trying to avoid them, mentally closing his head so as not to be affected by them, but as time passed he was finding it was getting harder and harder.

He shook his head trying to scare away his memories as if they were flies and set out to eat his favorite dish since he arrived in France: scrambled potatoes with pieces of meat seasoned with some spices, sprinkled with olive oil and covered with melted cheese.

After a long drink of "muggle" beer (Harry missed butterbeer so much), he took the newspaper and looked for the page with his photograph. There he was, surrounded by reporters and magic feathers, leaving the courtroom at the end of some of the many hearings he had to attend. Her eloquent gesture indicated he was annoyed.

If Harry Potter was already famous before Voldemort's defeat, after that historic event he simply never had peace or tranquility again. At first he tolerated it stoically, despite the mockery of his two best friends, who noticed his effort in it. But in a few days he got so mad that managed to distance himself from Ginny and fight bitterly with Ron, not to mention strong discussions with members of the Ministry, the Wizengamot (those who survived) and the press, or the sporadic but lacerating accusations of some parents of students killed in the last battle.

He remembered his outbursts of fury and his continuous search for isolation and silence, trying to escape from everything and everyone whenever he could. And how on May 10th the Ministry had decided to transform May 2nd into "Revolution Day of our Heroes in the Battle of Hogwarts"; it was much more decent than another proposal he remembered most and which fortunately was not chosen: the "Day of Harry Potter and his Crusade Against Who-You-Know."

He finished his late lunch and realized that he was still looking at the same picture, absorbed in his thoughts. The sun was falling quickly and hiding in the beautiful green mountains around, which would surely be covered with thick snow during the winter. He decided to continue reading the newspaper when he arrived at the hotel room where he was staying those days. Having the last drink of beer he looked at the previous page before closing it and almost drowned.

In it, there was a small photograph of Ron with a satisfied face hugging his brother Bill. Still coughing, he tried to read the article, but there was almost no light. He could barely distinguish anything but yet he could see his soul mate after many days. He seemed happy and proud, and Harry had the impression that he was the main subject of the image, although he might be wrong.

Unlike him, Ron was fascinated by his role as a hero, and always looked into the newspapers for any mention of him or any of his images. He did it sneaking around, and when he found some news related to him he would not stop talking about it, something that Harry enjoyed at first but then became more and more annoying.

What was certain was that as the days passed after the final battle, Harry began to become remarkably irritated by the harassment of the press, which was beneficial for Ron as he began to receive more attention from reporters. Far from keeping a low profile (in relation to the secrets and dangerous information they had discovered about the horcruxes and hallows), Ron seemed to take on the role of a celebrity and began declaring things he shouldn't have. Harry knew positively that his friend deserved his reputation as a hero for his enormous contribution to the crusade against Voldemort, but he had crossed certain boundaries that both Harry and Hermione were careful not to trespass.

The poor artificial lighting in the square didn't help and it was getting darker and darker, so he folded the newspaper and took the bags, his backpack and left towards the outskirts of Gap.

He arrived at his hotel room about eight o'clock at night, tired. He was able to disapparate and only after two attempts he managed to apparate in the dark alley he knew behind the hotel. The bags were heavy and he could not perform the enchantment Hermione had shown him when he moved to his house in Godric Hollow, and he couldn´t magically extend his backpack either.

He threw himself into the comfortable armchair, took off his snickers with his feet and rested his head on the backrest. In a few minutes his eyes began to shut until he fell asleep thinking about a white owl.

*****HP*****

That same night, at the same time, the light of the full moon flooded a dark room with its pale light, filtering through the open window. No noises were heard because of the late night, only the sounds of the leaves of the trees moving to the rhythm of the gentle night breeze.

It was a spacious room on the upper floor of the house, its walls almost entirely covered by shelves filled with books of all sizes. Some portraits were spread between the shelves, and in some of them the portrayed people moved and greeted each other.

Except for the bed, located under the window, there were only two sections of the walls that were not covered by books. On the opposite side of the window there was a wide wardrobe flanked by a narrow shelf (full of books and a few more portrait-holders) which remained closed although it seemed to have no lock or handles of any kind.

In the other section free of shelves there was a desk, with an upper shelf with tons of books.

At the same desk, crammed with open books, feathers and parchments, an owl rested on a small pedestal. It was beautiful, and its plumage seemed as soft as cotton and pale white due to the moonlight.

A girl had fallen asleep on the desk, her brown hair scrambled and untidy scattered over it. She wore a white nightgown and short stockings, but two details stood out in the light: her face, white and pale, seemed covered with tears, as if she had been crying for a long time. And his sleeping hand was still holding a small sheet of white paper, written in pen ink:

_"Dear Hermione:_

_I hope you are well, as are your parents. As I told you several times, the fact that you were able to recover them was my greatest happiness after the end of the battle, almost as much as when we were able to get rid of Voldemort. I still remember our trip to Australia with Ron, how nervous you were and your tears of joy and relief when you were able to recover their memories. As you may have heard many times, you are really talented!_

_For my part, I don't have much to tell. The same as the last time I wrote to you, still not knowing what I'm going to do with my life. I still think about being an Auror, but lately playing in some Quidditch team is an idea that I like more and more._

_I confess that sometimes I would really like to hear news from you and Ron and his family. Sometimes I look out the window of my new house and I imagine to see some owl arriving with news of you or Ron, and to read that you are fine and that at last you are happy. But I know it's impossible, since no one knows my address. It's what I decided and I don't regret it, only that sometimes it's impossible not to remember you all..._

_I miss you a lot, maybe that's why this letter is longer than the previous ones. I'm not good at writing, am I? Surely you know, I was never good at expressing myself, surely I owe it to the Dursleys!_

_As in the other letters I've sent you, I can't say how sorry I am that I left you that way. It is what I regret the most, I would give anything to change things and have said goodbye to you in another way. Remembering you crying sitting on the floor tortures me, makes me feel even worse than I felt. I know you wanted to try to make me feel better, because you were the only one who knew everything that was making me suffer. The deaths of loved ones and friends, the fights with you and Ron, the unbearable siege of the reporters, the death-eaters who managed to escape, all the people who reproached me for having gone to Hogwarts to "hide" me, all that (believe me, there is more) managed to blur my happiness and satisfaction for defeating Voldemort and for the fact that all three of us have survived._

_Again, I hope you'll forgive me. Please say hello to Ron for me (I've written to him, although I don't think he read my letters) and the Weasleys. I'll write to you again soon, but I don't know anything about you, so I don't know if you'll want another letter from me._

_Harry_

_PS: I deeply wish you had read this letter all the way through, and don't throw it in the trash when you see my name on the envelope."_


	4. Chapter 4- An unforgettable August 15th

**Chapter 4: An unforgettable August 15th**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling **

**Note: For those who have doubts, the battle of Hogwarts took place in May the 2****nd**** (1998 according to the author's chronology), and this fic begins on July 31 (Harry's birthday) of that same year.**

**4 – An unforgettable August 15****th**

Ten days later Harry entered his house tired, sweating and with his legs aching. It was already a habit for him to run an hour every day early in the morning through the beautiful neighborhood located at the slope of the mountains, which rose between the Mediterranean coast of Toulon and the rest of France. At first, a few months ago, he could barely hold his march for half an hour because his physical condition had never been so good, not even in his Quidditch's seeker days.

Now he was no longer out of breath, and he could really say that he enjoyed the exercise immensely. He felt healthy and loved to walk the streets ("chemin" or "rue" as they called them there) winding through beautiful neighborhoods of houses or woods before getting lost on the slopes of the surrounding mountains. Between abdominal exercises (three times a week) and his bicycle rides to downtown Toulon, Harry was sure he'd never been in better shape.

He knew that in the last few weeks he had filled his life with activities and projects to keep his head busy. And he was sure that it was resulting because the sadness and melancholy that had wrapped him since he had left England were giving way to his new life, a life to which he tried to give meaning and direction. He knew that the more than three months that had passed since his arrival in France were not enough, but he sensed that the heavy rock that crushed him against the ground was lightening his weight little by little, and with that he could start to stand up and recover.

In addition to running, Harry loved his two or three weekly bike rides to Toulon. It was a few miles, but he enjoyed it a lot. It was an excellent exercise for his whole body, but he did it mainly because Toulon was an important city and he did his shopping there, since in his neighborhood, _La Valette-du-Var_, there were no supermarkets or grocery stores or supplies whatsoever.

But in addition to keeping his head busy, all his activities and projects had also arisen as an unconscious reaction of his own to escape from the quasi-abandonment in which he was immersed. Harry was always an active guy full of worries and problems, of bitter enemies and incredible adventures. Surprisingly he found himself one morning putting on a pair of snickers to run out and clear his mind, projecting plans and activities mentally as he jogged for the first time down the street of his house to escape the loneliness of his life. And so, he discovered that his neighbors were friendly and used to greet him every time he passed by them (something unthinkable when he lived with his uncles on Privet Drive) regardless of his scar or past. In fact, every Friday night he started hanging out with some neighbors in the house next door to play Poker, which was boring compared to Ron's exploding snap cards, but he had to recognize that he enjoyed the company of his new "friends"; they tried very hard to speak in English in his presence, something Harry appreciated too much.

Just the day before he had gone to his neighbor Alain's house for his weekly Poker game, and he could still hear his laughter and the other four friends sitting around the green cloth table when Alain asked him the same question for the thousandth time:

"Someday you will tell us the story of that strange scar, Jean?"

Harry smiled, not only because he was not yet used to being called Jean but because he could easily imagine their reaction if he told them the truth: that he was a wizard, that a dark mental wizard named Tom Riddle a.k.a. Voldemort had caused it by casting a killing curse at him, and that this same scar was nothing less than a kind of antenna receiving the emotions of the aforementioned sorcerer.

Unable to bear it any longer, he burst out laughing as he imagined the confused faces of his neighbors.

After taking a bath and getting dressed, he sat at the kitchenette-style table with a cup of nice and hot British tea and a couple of bananas. Once the laughter turned into a smile, Harry went into the living room and opened the windows. The house filled with the warm rays of the morning sunshine, illuminating the white walls and the few pieces of furniture it had: a small round table for four people, a wide library with few books but many decorations (Harry had developed a hobby for collecting souvenirs of the places he visited), very comfortable brown leather armchairs, a small coffee-table next to the armchairs where the french magic newspaper was, and a piece of furniture for television and video player. He didn't need more than that, in fact the library always seemed too big to him. The rest of the house was also sparsely furnished, but Harry liked it that way. The upper floor had two rooms and a bathroom, equipped with the minimum necessary, but the view there was priceless: both from one room and the other you could see the slopes of the nearby mountains and the houses in the neighborhood lost between the treetops. The exterior of the house was also simple yet pleasant, with white walls and red tile roofs, but best of all was its location, surrounded by beautiful tress and the last on the street that ended abruptly on the steep slope of a mountain.

That same morning before running he had decided to go to Gap to send a couple of letters to Hermione and the Weasleys again. He took the backpack from the dining room table and put the wand and newspaper into it. He didn't know what he was carrying this last one for, as it had been edited several days ago and he had found nothing to do with "his" world except for some familiar photographs. Hopefully, he thought, Mr. Laffitte would have a more recent copie.

"Well, here we go again." Harry sighed, closing his eyes and concentrating on the hillside outside Gap. After a few seconds inside a dark suffocating tunnel, he felt his feet in the grass and when he opened his eyes he discovered the beautiful and quiet village a few kilometers down the hillside.

"Yes, I did it," shouted Harry, laughing openly and extending his arms to the sky. "Dedicated to you, Twycross!" he shouted this time, aiming his index finger towards who knows where. As he took the first step, he stumbled with a loose rock and fell to his knees to the ground, burying his hands in a heap of fresh, stinking manure.

*****HP*****

Harry reached the village rather less euphoric than when he had realized that he had a precise apparition at first attempt (the slope of that very hill he had reached), because he had nothing to clean himself and had walked a long way to find a small, shallow puddle of water to wash the greenish pestilence grass.

The day was beautiful and the sun was already halfway between the horizon and the zenith. The cool morning breeze was still blowing, and the scents of the town Harry liked so much put him in a good mood. As he walked down an alley leading to the small square he realized that he did not remember so many quiet months.

Once there, Harry smiled. He saw a lot of people walking around the square, touring the regional souvenir and grocery stores. Most of them seemed to be locals, but others stood out notably thanks to their cameras hanging from their necks and their shopping bags. Some were eating french breakfasts at the tables, served by the only waiter at the only restaurant in the area. His stomach rumbled as he passed by and saw the croissants, jams and steaming cups of coffee, and he decided that he would have a second Ron-style breakfast after sending the letters and getting a more recent copy of the newspaper "_La Provence Matin_".

It was still early, so before going to send the letters he toured some stores hoping to find one that sold butterbeer or pumpkin juice. However, he was unlucky and went to Mr. Laffitte's store to send his owls.

After entering the shop and exchanging the usual greetings, the old man smiled and winked at him as he made his way to the back. Smiling at the gentleman's gestures which were the same every time he went there, he followed him and deliberately looked for a newspaper in the darkness of the corridor. He could see one on the same table as before, and wished that Laffitte could give it to him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Martans, but I don't have your favorite owl available today." He said when Harry arrived at the place where used to rest the white owl.

"Has anything happened to Chantelle?"

"Oh, no! It was sent by a couple of people a few minutes ago. Strange people, yes..." said to himself, though Harry could hear him. He went to the cages and a few seconds later he came back with a brown owl in his hand, called Claudette.

"Thank you, that'll be enough." Harry replied. Laffitte handed him some blank sheets of paper and a pen, and he began to return to the store when he turned around and said:

"Oh, Monsieur Martans, I forgot. A man and a woman walked into the store yesterday, showed me a photograph of you and asked me if I knew you. Don't worry, I told them I'd never seen you before." That said, he patted him on the shoulder and went to the front of the store.

Harry stood in the same place for a few seconds, considering what the old owner had told him, and whether they were related to the two strangers he had mentioned before. He found it strange that someone would look for him in that place.

Still thinking about it, he went to the ramshackle table where he always wrote his letters. He began to write the first one to the Weasley's, and as he was about to finish it he heard a noise from the store, followed by a couple of apparently fragile objects that exploded as they fell to the floor. Harry turned and saw nothing, and wondering if Laffitte had an accident he looked for his backpack to grab his wand, but didn´t find it. And just a few seconds later a chill ran through his body, anticipating a hoarse, muffled voice that sounded behind him.

"Turn around, Potter."

It took Harry a few seconds to react. No one had called him Potter for more than three months, and that raspy, hoarse voice seemed naturally English and remotely familiar. Carefully, he turned and saw two tall men in black cloaks aiming their wands at him.

"At last. I have to admit it was hard to find you."

Harry reasoned quickly and desperately. He didn't know either of them, and he didn't understand how the hell they found him or why they wanted him. He instinctively put his hand into the back pocket of his pants but remembered that his wand was in the backpack he had left on the counter at the front of the store.

"Don't you have your wand with you? What an idiot, this will be very easy!" said the other, with a sinister smile full of cynicism. The one who had spoken first also laughed, and added:

"I still don't understand how you escaped so many times from the Dark Lord." he said with a gesture of fury and coldness on his frightening face.

The other nodded in anger, and added:

"When our Lord returns again he will know that we..."

"Voldemort is dead! He will never come back! Are you idiots? He'll never come back again!" shouted Harry, unable to contain his anger at the stupidity of those followers, wishing Laffitte to listen. He knew this could happen from the very beginning and no one believed him, calling him paranoid at least: that the death-eaters were going to keep believing that their master would return again from the death.

"Shut the fuck up!" Rugged the one on the right. "Don't you dare to call him like that!"

Harry couldn't believe this. He had defeated Voldemort and survived twice the _Avada Kedavra_, but at the end he would be killed by two poor lackeys caught without his wand, although lately his magic was failing. Harry swallowed and with his nerves on edge he waited; he could do nothing.

"Kill him once Petters, and let's get out of here before..."

Suddenly, the two Voldemort followers were expelled by a red burst that threw them face down and unconscious practically over his feet. And as he looked up he opened his eyes with infinite surprise.

Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour. Harry couldn't believe what he was seeing, his mind was stunned and he couldn't find an explanation for the situation.

It was already incomprehensible (and frustrating) to him that two supposed death-eaters managed to find him, and now seeing Bill and Fleur standing there was even more impossible for him. How had they located him? He had been careful not to reveal details in the letters. Perhaps they had tracked down the owls...

"Hello Hagy!" said Fleur, apparently as surprised as he was. Bill's wife was still as beautiful as ever, her blond hair shone under the rays of the sun giving her a shiny aura. But Bill seemed serious and worried.

"Where´s your wand, Harry?" asked the oldest of the Weasley, with the scars on his face barely visible thanks to the glow that came from the girl part Veela.

"Well..." Started, still unable to react. "It's inside my backpack, in the front of the store. Could you stop aiming your wands at me?"

Instantly, they both lowered their wands. Fleur kept smiling warmly at him, she seemed sincerely happy to see Harry. Bill, on the other hand, kept his eyebrows frowned.

"Why don't you have the wand with you, Harry?" he insisted.

The boy pretended to answer, but sighed and lowered his eyes to watch the stunned wizards. He didn't want to tell them that he didn't think it was necessary to carry the wand everywhere, or that he didn't think there was in danger in Gap. Nor did he want to tell them (not for the moment) that his magic was no longer the same as before.

Harry turned one of them over with his foot, and looked at his face with a pair of thick scars and a crooked nose. He did not recognize him, though his hoarse voice had sounded vaguely familiar. Disgusted, he looked up and looked at his rescuers with a timid smile. He was pleased to see them, but still doubted.

"Thank you, you saved my life. They wanted to kill me."

"You´re welcome, Harry," Bill replied, now smiling for the first time.

"How the hell did you both find me?" asked Harry, unable to contain himself any longer.

"Not now." Fleur said, interrupting Bill's explanation. "We must go. We don't know if there are othegs here."

Bill nodded, and with a wave of his wand he immobilized the wizards with thick ropes. Soon, they went to the front of the store, and there Harry saw Mr. Laffitte lying on the floor with his eyes open, over lots of small boxes and surrounded by pieces of glass and broken plates.

"Mr. Laffitte," moaned Harry, lunging at his body. He grabbed his head with his hands in desperation, unwilling to believe what he was seeing.

"He's dead, Harry. He was murdered with a killing curse."

Harry couldn't believe it. Not again. Another person died because of him, just because he had the misfortune to be near him. He felt an outbreak of anger and helplessness through his throat. It was like a curse that haunted him and did not abandon him, not even that far from the English magical community. He really appreciated Mr. Laffitte, and now he was there, lying lifeless with his gray scrambled hair. A few minutes before he had spoken to him, and now his eyes were lifeless, staring at the ceiling.

"He told me that two strangers had sent an owl earlier today." Harry whispered. He remembered what Laffitte had told him in the back when he was looking for the white owl.

"What?" Bill asked getting closer, as he had not been able to hear it well.

"He told me that two strangers had sent an owl minutes before I arrived."

Bill looked up and looked at Fleur, who immediately worried.

"Was it them, Harry? Laffitte told you if it was them?"

"I don't know!" He replied, his eyes glazed and a knot in his throat that wouldn't let him breathe.

"I will sent an owl to my fatheg. He works in the Fgench Ministry, he will know what to do."

"Hurry up." Bill told her.

After Fleur went to the back, Harry looked at Bill.

"What will we do with him? We can't leave him here!"

"The French Ministry will take care of it. Yes, they helped us locate you." Bill concluded before Harry's perplexed gaze. "If that's what I think, those two will have warned someone else. So this place is no longer safe for you."

Annoyance. Anger. Unbelief. All that was Harry's feeling at the time. He thought they would never leave him alone, not even with Voldemort dead.

A few minutes later, Fleur appeared behind the two of them. "That's it. I have wgitten to them about Laffitte and the two death-eatgs. They will come here soon."

"Where are we going? To the hotel in Toulon?" Bill asked looking at his wife, but Harry shook his head.

"No. To my house." He got up, took the backpack and remembered the newspaper. When he returned, he took his wand.

"Take my hands."

*****HP*****

A few seconds later the three appeared in the neighborhood of Harry's house in _La Valette-du-Var_, but at the end of the street. A few more meters and they would have ended up inside the mountain slope.

"It could have been worse, believe me." Harry said as he saw the puzzled faces of the two of them. He start a quick walk down the street, and Bill and Fleur shrugged and followed him. He could see his house from there about two hundred meters away.

"Wow Hagy! This is where you live? It's beautiful!" The girl marveled at the scenery down the street. From there the whole neighborhood was visible, with its beautiful houses surrounded by trees between the surrounding mountains. And in the background the silhouette of Toulon, over the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea.

As he walked downhill, Harry heard Bill say something about the sun, to which Fleur replied in his characteristic haughty voice:

"Ha! You British don't know sunny days!" And raising his voice she added: "Conggatulations Hagy! You choose right!"

Despite the frustration and the anguish, Harry allowed himself a slight smile; he liked to live there, he had undoubtedly chosen well.

A boy on a small bicycle approached them, whom Harry recognized as the son of one of his poker buddies.

"Bon jour Monsieur Martans!" He greeted, and then asked him something in French that he couldn't understand. Harry stopped his march to answer him.

"Bon jour Michael. Pardon? He asked him, although he knew he would not understand the question. Luckily Fleur approached him and answered in French, to which the boy nodded with a bright smile and pedaled off.

"What was that?" Bill asked ahead of Harry.

"Ze boy asked how we got here, because he saw us appearing _suddenly_ up there. I told him that we had gone to exploge and we had come out of the tgees."

"I thought you told him you wanted to be his girlfriend, because of his smile." Bill said laughing.

"The kids are a little more sensitive to my Veela part, Bill."

A few minutes later, the three of them were sitting at the kitchen table, after walking around the house and congratulating Harry again because they thought it was a very pretty place.

"Well? How did you find me?" Questioned Harry. Fleur got up as if she had springs in her butt, saying that she would make some tea.

"I'll tell you, but first let me ask you why you left England, and why you came to the south of France." Ask Bill.

"Haven't you spoken to Ron?" asked Harry incredulously. "Haven't you read the letters I sent to the Burrow?"

"I've been with Ron several times but he never told me why you left, Harry." Bill replied, leaning his back on the back of the chair. "And we still live at Shell Cottage, I guess you'll remember. So I didn't read the letters you sent, although my mother has told me a couple times that you were fine."

"She misses you Harry's, and so do the others. She didn't like it at all when she found out you were gone." Bill added. If there was anyone he didn't want to let down, it was Mrs. Weasley, whom he loved almost like a mother.

Bill proceeded with a sigh at Harry's silence.

"Ginny was very sad. Ron not so much, but he looked very nervous and used to lose his temper for anything. No one understood or understands why you left so suddenly, and why did you come to... what's the name of this place?"

"_La-Valette-du-Var_, close to Toulon."

"Oh, it was pretty close, wasn't it Fleur?" Said Bill smiling and looking at his wife, making her smile; she was still at the kitchen.

Bill looked at Harry´s confusion, laughed eagerly and went on.

"In one of the last letters you sent to the Burrow you tell my mother not to worry about your alimentation as you did your shopping with your bicycle at a place called _Intermarché Lorience_! Once she told us, Fleur didn't have much trouble finding out that it was a supermarket in Toulon!" Bill completed, laughing out loud.

Harry looked down at the table, noticing how his face had blushed from the embarrassment of such mistake. Writing was definitely not for him.

"Anyway," continued Bill after he stopped laughing. "We told Fleur's father, who works at the French Ministry of Magic, that we were looking for you and we thought you were in Toulon. Through an excellent contact that he has in the Internal Investigation Office of the Ministry he told us that in a few days he would let us know if he had any news. Of course we wanted to give him a picture of you, but he told us it wasn't necessary because the Ministry knew who you were".

"So while we waited for his answer we decided to go to Toulon. We've been there for two weeks."

"You've been looking for me for two weeks..." asked Harry without being able to believe that they took so much time to look for him.

"Oh no, silly boy!" Fleur replied with a wonderful smile on his face as she sat at the table with the tray with a teapot and cups. "We decided we could take some advantage fgom the situation and use the tgip as the honeymoon we couldn't had."

"Believe me, we did other things during that two weeks!" Bill added, exchanging smiles with his wife. Harry rolled his eyes; he didn´t want to know details about his activities.

"Finally, three days ago Fleur's father sent us an owl informing us that Toulon had no magical community and no record of magicians living there. Nor that any Harry Potter has bought any property or opened any bank account." After a sip of tea, Bill put the cup on the table and continued.

"But at the end of the letter, he told us that the nearest magical community was Gap, a town about a hundred and fifty kilometers from Toulon. It was our only clue, so yesterday morning we went to Gap and after a while we located the store from which the owls came out following one that passed over us.

Harry nodded. That's also how he had found Mr. Laffitte's store himself.

"When we came in, we showed your picture to the man who attended us. He said he had never seen you, but his gesture at your image was too eloquent."

Now he remembered. Laffitte had also told him that a man and a woman had asked about him. He had mistakenly linked them to the two death-eaters who attacked him at the back of the store.

"We had a lot of luck. We went to Gap very eagly, and we saw you a few hours later getting into the store. We wanted to call you fgom the table where we were sitting, but then we saw those two wizagds with dark cloaks and we went looking fog you. Too late for Monsieur Laffitte."

Something was not clear not Bill though.

"What did that boy in his bike call you?"

"Jean Martans. I invented that name when I bought this house. That's why you haven't succeeded in finding the name Harry Potter."

"Damn it Harry, if I had known the name you were using we would have located you days ago!"

After an hour of talking, where Harry told them about his new life, Bill got more serious.

"You have to go back to England, Harry. Your friends are there, and the Weasley consider you part of the family, no matter how distant you are from Ron or Ginny."

"I don't think so, Bill. I'm fine here, I still have money to support myself and give me time to decide what I'm going to do." Harry replied. He had the Potter Cottage in Godric Hollow and Grimmauld Place as Sirius' inheritance In England, plus a considerable amount of money on Gringott´s (despite all the money he took to France), but he really liked his new house and felt that he was building a new home and making friends there.

"Harry, have you noticed that things are not as safe as they seem? If something is going to happen to you here no one would know, I mean, no one of those of us who appreciate you and consider you much more than a great friend."

Harry was ashamed at such a display of affection, and smiled uncomfortable. Fleur also smiled and took his hand.

"You have sacgified so much coming here, Hagy." Said the girl, adding with sweetness, "You must have very good reasons. I don't know you that well but I know you are vegy attached to your affections and very pgotective. You must have suffered a lot."

The boy nodded slightly at her. He couldn't hold his tears much longer so he lowered his eyes and took a breath.

"Consider it Harry, please. And take care of yourself." They got up and headed for the door. "We're leaving now, we'll be in Toulon for a few more days. Haven't you thought about doing a _Fidelius_ enchantment here?"

"And who would be my secret guardian?" Harry replied with a hint of cynicism as he opened the door, not telling them that he was having problems with his magic.

"Yes, I see. Have you protected the house in any way?"

"With _salvio hexia_ and _protego totalum_ enchantments, as soon as I bought it. I remember that Hermione used them when..." His heart beat hard when he remembered all those days with Hermione and Ron in which they escaped from Voldemort trying to find the horcruxes hiding in a tent.

"Harry? Are you okay?"

He looked up and saw Bill watching him. He was absorbed in his memories, and when he returned to reality he asked him:

"Do you know anything about Hermione?"

Bill raised his eyebrows and said, "Not much, really. In the last few months I've been going a lot to the Ministry, which was in chaos. I'm sorry to insist Harry, I think those spells are fine, but maybe you need some extra spell to strengthen your security in here."

"Don't worry Bill, those two spells are enough. No one will look for me here." Harry looked outside and discovered that the evening would soon be night. He didn't want to tell him that his magic was failing and that he wouldn't be able to do any of those spells.

"All right. But at least consider returning to England. Everyone misses you there, Harry." He stopped abruptly and frowning added: "How did you manage not to tell me why you left?"

"I don't know, Bill. Perhaps next time you come to visit me."

"We will. And you won't escape again," he said smiling, giving him a farewell hug.

"Goodbye Hagy! Take good care of yourself." Fleur said, kissing him on both cheeks. Fortunately it was getting dark, so no one would notice he was blushing.

"I'll tell my mother you're fine and I tried hard to convince you to come back. Otherwise she would never forgive me," Bill said, adding, "And for Merlin´s sake, your wand must be always with you!

Harry nodded, and a second later a slight "pop" was heard. He stared at the place where the couple was standing a few seconds earlier, and realized that they had disappeared just three or four meters from his door.

"Too close." Harry thought as he entered his house. "Maybe I should listen to Bill and reinforce the protective enchantments." He kept thinking as he sat on the couch and turned on the television, though he didn't know how he would do that.

*****HP*****

A few hours later, Harry woke up startled by a noise he heard near him. With his eyes still blurry, he put his glasses on and realized that he had fallen asleep in the same couch with the television on. Thinking that perhaps the noise was coming from the apparatus, he pretended to get up and saw with disbelief and surprise an owl standing in the frame of the open window.

After a few seconds in which he had been petrified observing it as if it could not be possible for that owl to be there, he got up and went slowly towards the bird. The night had fall over his home, and as he approached he found that the owl was trained for delivering mail and not a wild one. She was carrying a letter, the first letter he had received in months.

With his hand trembling and an enormous emptiness in her stomach, he took it and read it.

_352 Chemin de la Bosquette, La Valette-du-Var, Provence, France_.

It was addressed to him as it was his own address. His breath was cut off as he turned it around and looked at the sender with his eyes wide open from another huge surprise: the red wax he knew so well, and the Hogwarts seal.


	5. Chapter 5- A busy morning

**Chapter 5: A busy morning**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!**

**5- A busy morning**

Sitting on the living room couch and looking at Hogwarts' unopened letter in his hand, Harry's brain was boiling with questions and theories. He couldn't understand how the school had managed to locate his exact address. He remembered that his first letter was incredibly directed to where he slept, the cupboard under the stairs, but now Harry was in another country, and undercover as Jean Martan. But if Bill and Fleur could find him (and the death-eaters too) he concluded that Hogwarts could do it too.

With his head working intensely, he looked out at the window where the owl had landed, which had already gone. Night had long since fallen, and only the sound of the leaves of the trees and the squeaking of the crickets could be heard. A cold breeze came in through the still open window. Instead of a nice night view, now he only could see a cold darkness.

He rose and closed all the windows. Not because of the cold, but because he suddenly felt very exposed. He did not think that closing the windows would prevent unwanted and potentially dangerous guests from visiting, but he still closed them and drew the curtains while making a mental note about improving the protective incantations around his house (if he could do so, due the problems with his magic) the next day.

He turned the letter over and looked again at the sender, touching the red wax with his fingers. For some reason he kept remembering the first time he received his letter, actually several letters because his uncles wouldn't let him read it. He smiled nostalgically remembering Hagrid bursting into that cabin on the island, scaring the Dursleys to death, handing him the letter personally and changing his life forever. What would his life been like if his uncles would manage to hold him and not let him go? He could not even imagine it, the magical world was "his" life, "his" reality, and at Hogwarts he had discovered his family and met all his friends.

"Hogwarts." Harry muttered.

What was the meaning of that letter? Hogwarts was going to open that same year? Impossible, thought Harry shooking his head and remembered the state of the school after the final battle. If he remembered correctly some corridors had been almost completely destroyed, as well as an entire side of the castle (during that specific attack that Fred lost his life). The damage caused by acromantulas, giants and death-eaters was general and many walls and halls had been left in very bad condition.

He also remembered Slytherin's emeralds scattered on the floor and a great deal of furniture, armour and portraits damaged. The Great Dining Room was covered of debris, wounded and rows of lifeless bodies. Harry continued to mentally tour the castle and its pitiful condition after the battle, and he did not remember any area of the castle that had not been damaged, at least the places where he had been. After Voldemort's death at dawn and his last visit to the Director's office, he had stayed with Hermione, the Weasley and the other survivors all day, partly sleeping a few hours to recover the two longest days of his life, and partly talking to his friends and teachers, mourning the dead (especially over the bodies of Fred, Lupin, Tonks and Colin) and visiting the hospital wing to heal his injuries and support the many wounded.

Harry was surprised to see himself sitting on the couch again. His eyes were still lost and unfocused, immersed in his painful memories. Every time he remembered the bodies of those people killed during the battle, or the large number of wounded (some of whom he never knew if they had healed at all), a deep pain arose from inside and destroyed the weak defenses that time was building inside him. It was like starting over again feeling in part guilty for so many losses.

He looked at the envelope again and shook his head again; he didn't think it was possible to reopen the school so soon. Maybe they were inviting him to some kind of meeting or commemoration.

He sighed. A part of him did not want to open it. That part that led him to the south of France to escape from everything and everyone and to get a new life. A new life that he was managing to build with a new place, new friends and away from problems. The part of him who wanted to try to forget his sorrows and his guilt and be in peace for the first time in his life. The part of him that wanted to be happy.

But it was a letter from Hogwarts.

He took the envelope and opened it. He would allow his other side to prevail for the moment but only out of curiosity, to see what it said or why it had been sent to him.

_Dear Mr. H. Potter:_

_We are pleased to contact you to invite you to the memorial and ceremony of partial reopening of Hogwarts Castlen on August 20. We expect your owl to confirm your presence before the 10th of the same month._

_We also inform you that classes will begin on September 15. The two-week delay in the start of school responds to force majeure causes, due to the known events at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

_Please note the list of equipment and books needed for the school year on the next page, and answer with an owl as soon as possible._

_Very cordially_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Headmistress_

Well, what Harry considered impossible now seemed like a reality. Only three and a half months had passed since the end of the war, he couldn't find any explanation that would give him a satisfactory answer about how they had done to restore and make the castle habitable, even if it is only a part of it.

He remembered the donations, where wizards and witches contributed with galleons, material, works of art and even physical efforts to the reconstruction of the castle and surroundings; he himself donated a lot of galleons a couple of days before leaving (running away) to France. It was not enough too, reasoned Harry.

Even with his mouth open with surprise, Harry read the letter over and over again. More than a year ago during Dumbledore's funeral he had decided not to attend his seventh year to devote himself fully to the search for the horcruxes, besides being the most wanted person in the magical world at that moment. Since then he had not thought about finishing school again, and now he had in his hands an invitation to finish his studies.

Harry smiled. He would not attend. He already knew that, even if it was an attractive idea. He didn't need it, he could be Auror if he wanted to. He had earned it in his own right after defeating Voldemort, and he also felt that having discovered the horcruxes (with the invaluable help of his friends Ron and Hermione) and the deathly hallows made him more than capable on his Auror aspirations.

Hermione.

He imagined her at that very moment reading her letter, enthusiastic and euphoric to be able to complete his studies. He knew she would want to attend and smiled again as he imagined her buying her equipment and books at Diagon Alley, holding hand with Ron.

His smile evaporated from his face, though he didn't care. The two of them would be Head Girl and Boy (if Ron were to attend) without any doubt, and without the dangers of previous years or the worries of dementors or attacks from death-eaters, their performance would be outstanding, especially those of Hermione. He smiled again: after all she did for him and all the times she put her life at risk just for following him or trusting him, no one deserved more than her to enjoy a quiet year doing what she enjoyed most: studying. Erasing the memory of her parents at the risk of losing them forever to ensure their safety (in Australia) and following Harry and Ron throughout the whole country was something he would never forget.

No, she couldn't be reading his letter right now. It will have reached her long before it reached him. But he still wanted to keep that image, because it somehow did him good and filled him with warmth.

After a few more minutes Harry got up from the couch and went up the stairs to sleep. He literally threw himself into his bed with clothes and immediately fell deeply asleep, after a day where everything had happened to him. An atypical day for him in his new life, but nothing strange for the "old" Harry.

*****HP*****

The next morning, he was having breakfast in the kitchen illuminated up by a warm and comforting morning sun, before going out for his morning exercises. He was still with the letter, this time re-reading the first part that he had not paid attention to because of the impact the news about the start of classes had on him the night before.

The reopening was within four days and the deadline for sending his confirmation owl had expired (either way he could not have respond since he hadn´t got an owl). He didn't know what that meeting would be about, but he was sure there would be a lot of assistants, not only related to the school but to the whole magical community. Hogwarts historically was always a symbol and emblem of knowledge and magical power, founded by the four most powerful witches and wizards of all time and a bastion of the fight against evil and darkness that became the last hope of the magical world and a stronghold for its defenders.

"Well, you will miss my presence." He muttered sarcastically. He didn't think he would be able to deal with that so soon. Not after so many bitter fights with some of his friends and with his ex-girlfriend, or the frictions with the press and with some members of the Ministry.

Besides, he did not feel ready to return to Hogwarts. He would suffer greatly from just being there, and being forced to remember all the dead during the battle and all the horrors experienced that dreadful night. He was aware that he wasn´t the only one with those traumas and nightmares though, and didn´t really know how the hell the other survivals would do or feel inside the Castle.

He realized that he had deceived himself into believing that the horrors of his past were slowly giving way. If only a letter gave him nightmares and stirred up his memories, what would happen to him if he dare to go to Hogwarts?

"Perhaps later, perhaps I need more time." Harry thought as he rose to the door.

Although he would like to see his former companions and friends again, he did not know how he would react to them, especially Hermione, Ginny and Ron, and how they would react to him. But there was something else, a very deep and personal desire that was fixed inside his mind since he went to the forbidden forest to meet Voldemort that he could only satisfy there at Hogwarts.

He left his house and breathed the clean morning air. The freshly cut grass aroma put him instantly in a good mood. The sun was rising behind the mountains, and the golden rays gave the landscape an idyllic, dreamy appearance. He looked at the place where Bill and Fleur disappeared the night before and remembered that he had to try to reinforce the security enchantments.

The neighborhood was in silence except for a few neighbors who came out to pick up the newspaper or were maintaining their gardens. He greeted Jean-Luc's wife as he ran at a good pace down the street, ready to reach the edge of the village and then climb back up. He loved to exercise at that time of the morning enjoying the beautiful and fragrant surroundings, but a few minutes ago a doubt afflicted him and occupied his brain.

He thought about his exile for almost three months, and how in one day two death-eaters, Bill, Fleur and the owl of Hogwarts had located him. He felt stupid and childish for having believed that he could hide indefinitely from everyone, and his failure filled him with uncertainty and insecurity. Yes, he would definitely try to strengthen the defenses of his home, though he didn't know if he would be able to do it with his shattered magic; he felt his wand shaking with the movement inside the inner pocket of his sports jacket and realized he felt kind of disconnected from his magic core.

More than half an hour later, Harry was running uphill in direction to his neighborhood. The exercise was more demanding, but he was in good condition and wasn´t so demanding as before. The sun had already appeared behind the mountains and was hitting his face a little more tanned than his usual paleness. The same sun that was blinding him didn't let him see a woman walking towards him until he was a few meters away.

"Fleur?" shouted Harry worried.

"Bon jour Hagy!" answered. When he got to where she was, he stopped and crouched to catch his breath.

"Did you go out for your morning excegcises?"

Harry nodded and stood up. The rays of sunshine shone around Fleur and again he had the impression that a beautiful golden aura was surrounding her. His breath was cut off again and he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, did something happen?" asked the boy.

"No, I went to look for you at your house and since you wegen't there, I remembered you told us about your excegcises."

Luckily Harry was able to get used to the beautiful girl's vision and felt safe to look at her again.

"Bill went very early to the French Ministry, but told me to come looking for you. Let's go back to youg house and I tell you."

"Ok." Harry replied and frowned.

The girl took Harry by the arm and they walked up the street to their home.

"Fleur, why didn't you or Bill tell me yesterday that Hogwarts would open this year?" asked, remembering that fact at that moment.

"You got the letter? That´s good!" Fleur said, adding with a faint smile, "He thought we shouldn't ruin the surprise, though he didn't know if Hogwarts would be able to find you!"

Harry nodded, knowing that not only Hogwarts had been able to find him. A few minutes later he saw the small forest that surrounded his house.

"Fleur, yesterday I forgot to ask Bill. Do you know how Ron and... Hermione are?"

Harry noticed how the girl smiled slightly.

"You know Ron was untreatable fog a while. He is fine now, wogking with his brother."

"Time can fix anything." He said to himself, while Fleur continued.

"They have a weird relationship." She said, more thoughtful. "You know, with Hegmione."

Yeah, he knew that. One way or another they always found reasons to fight or argue. Sometimes Harry enjoyed listening to his friend try to defend himself against Hermione's overwhelming logic, but other times he did not tolerate that and ran away from them. He even tried sometimes to avoid being with them, one of the many reasons why Ron began to get angry with Harry.

"The gigl was very sad since you left. Sometimes I saw her crying without any greason. I saw her a couple of times lately, a little absent or indiffegent. Ron wasn´t being comprehensive about it. If you ask me..."

Fleur interrupted her story because Harry had taken her by the arm. She looked at him and quickly realized that something was happening.

"What's wrong, Hagy?"

He looked through the trees around the house, tense and with the wand in his hand. "I have visitors."

*****HP*****

Fleur took Harry by the arm and left the street to hide behind the nearest tree. She was frightened but strong-willed too, and very talented.

Harry looked through the trees. He saw shadows moving around his house but couldn't tell how many, although he assumed they had already discovered the weak defenses against unwanted visitors around the house. He looked around and fortunately saw no neighbor nearby, then whispered to the girl:

"Fleur, stay here."

"Where do you think you're going? Let's get out of here like Bill told us!" she said obfuscated, holding him with her hand.

"No way. It's my house," Harry said. "Are you sure it's not Bill?"

"No, Bill is in the Ministgy yet. They're the bad guys, Harry. I can feel them fgom here."

"I'll try to stun one of them from here. Cover me!"

"No!

"Bloody hell, Fleur! I'm not going in there, just cover me!"

Harry came out from behind the tree and took a few steps trying not to make any noise, aiming his wand firmly at a small clearing between the trees in front of him.

He stood motionless like a statue, waiting for his chance. As soon as he noticed a shadow passing by he mumbled: "_Stupefy_!"

A beam of red light struck the stranger's body, but far from collapsing the subject cast a counter-spell that passed close to where Harry was, and forced to take refuge again. He peeked out from behind the tree again, and as he saw him running towards them firing curses into them, he shouted, "_Stupefy_!"

His spell only stumbled the subject, and as soon as he resumed his race Fleur struck him down with an accurate stun spell.

They hid behind the tree again. Harry cursed himself for having forgotten the "little" problem with his magic.

"What's the matteg with you, Hagy? Why didn't you stun him?" the girl asked alarmed.

"I don't know! I forgot that I've had problems with my magic lately!" The boy was furious, obfuscated and impotent.

"Foolish boy! Very bad timing to kidding like this!" the girl spiked at him. They heard footsteps a few meters away and Fleur peeked out of the hiding place throwing another stun spell, this time missing the enemy. Harry went after her just in time to throw her to the ground dodging a green curse that struck the tree where they were a couple of seconds earlier.

Enraged by the killing curse that had been thrown at Fleur, Harry aimed from the ground at the cloaked wizard and shouted with all his fury:

"_Reducto_!"

The spell exploded on the opponent's chest and threw him several meters into the trees. Harry stood motionless waiting for him to rise or for another wizard to appear, but neither happened. After several seconds Fleur said softly with a hint of humor:

"Don't ever do that joke to me again, Hagy!"

"Let's go." Harry stood up and helped the French witch stand up. "What are we going to do with these two?"

"We must warn the Ministgy to come and agest them. Tie them up and take them to the backyard of youg house, whege no one can see them. Then we'll leave as I told you before!"

"_Incárcerus_" murmured Harry pointing his wand at one of them. Nothing.

"You better do it." he said confused.

After she tied them tightly, Fleur took them levitating to the clearing behind the back of Harry's house, away from the curious glances and away from the weak protections. When she returned he said to the girl:

"Let's go inside. I'll get some things and we'll get out of here. Now I'll listen to you."

As Fleur entered he looked at him and muttered "_Vas à la merde_" loud enough for Harry to hear. He smiled, closing the door, knowing what it meant.

*****HP*****

"Well Hagy, tell me what is happening with youg magic."

Half an hour later, both Harry and Fleur were in the hotel room in Toulon where the couple stayed for the last few days. It was large and spacious, with a spectacular view of the Mediterranean coast and its beaches. The king-size bed was located on the opposite side of the room where they were sitting.

The girl had served tea on a small table near the balcony window, and looked worried.

"I don't know. I started having problems a couple of days after arriving to France." He replied, and after a sip he continued, "It must be something psychological."

Fleur nodded. "In Beauxbaton a professog once taught us that our magic core is sometimes sensitive to oug psyche." The girl spoke with raised eyebrows and lost sight at the table, absorbed in her memories.

"She was the teacheg of Etiquette and Pgotocol of oug sixth year. She taught us that spells change depending on oug state of mind, and that those who change most are those whose power are based on oug inside."

"The _patronus_." Harry said dryly, recalling his useless attempt a few days ago.

The girl nodded again. "Yes, but is not the only one, there are othegs. I remember she said that if you are angry, the spells tended to increase in intensity and unstableness and even depended on some things like experience or poweg."

"If one is very sad, its spells and enchantments are weakeg since its magical core is affected. Only the occlumens can remain unaffected to their inner changes."

Harry nodded, thinking of the three most powerful wizards he had seen who were now dead. But he didn't say anything, because he imagined something like that.

He looked up and realized that Fleur was looking at him, thoughtful.

"You must have had a very bad time, Hagy."

He couldn't look at her anymore and lowered his eyes, embarrassed. He didn't know anyone who had been affected like that. He only remembered the change in the _Patronus_ of Tonks a couple of years ago when she was in love with Lupin and he rejected her because he was a werewolf.

"I am so sorry Fleur. I risked your life unnecessarily by not remembering my ... problem." He said in a very low voice, still looking at the table, sorrowful.

The girl rested her hand on top of his. "Look at me, silly boy!"

Harry smiled. Not only because he liked to be called that (he didn't find it offensive at all) but because he felt a wave of understanding that Fleur radiated; it must have had something to do with her part Veela. He looked up and saw that she was smiling.

There were no words, only understanding and mutual smiles.

"Thank you Fleur." whispered, feeling less embarrassed and a little more animated. He got up and went to the window to look at the scenery.

The French witch smiled and said, "You are very receptive, fighting with youg friends must have affected you very much... especially with _youg_ _friend_."

The boy frowned as he had his eyes fixed on the distant and perfect horizon. What did she meant? When he turned to ask, a slight "pop" preceded Bill's appearance near the door.

"Hello Harry! I see you listened to Fleur and came! Wow, I didn't expect you to give in so fast!" he commented cheerfully as he shook his hand.

"Not exactly." Harry thought, as he watched Fleur roll his eyes.

"I just got back from the Ministry, I was with your father, Fleur. He told me not to worry and that the Bureau of Investigation would take care of the two death-eaters we caught in Gap. But they think they've detected traces of dark magic that can't be related to just two wizards. That's why I told Fleur to pick you up, they probably know now where to find you and... sorry, why are you both grinning?" He ask as he looked at the smile of the two of them.

"We algeady know that, my love!" Fleur said giggling.

"Yes," Harry added, "You were right, they managed to find me."

Bill was alarmed, "What? So fast? What happened?"

"This morning. Don't worry, Fleur immobilized and gagged them. They're hidden in the back of my house."

"We have to go and see my fatheg, Bill. They algeady know we got the two othegs either, and they surely want to meet the famous Hagy Potter!" said the girl hugging her husband.

"Of course, and the cause in only two days of more trouble here in this part of France than in the last whole decade!" Bill added with a smile. "You've locked those two with an anti-apparition spell, haven't you, Fleur?"

The girl nodded in a mischievous gesture as she hugged him around his neck and kissed him.

"Well done!" Bill said as best he could, his mouth very busy. This time it was Harry who rolled his eyes. He thought of telling them to get a room, but remembered they were already in one so he decided to shut up.


	6. Chapter 6- Reconstruction and reopening

**Chapter 6: Reconstruction and reopening**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!**

**6- Reconstruction and reopening**

A few days later Harry arrived at Hogsmeade with Fleur and Bill. He still did not understand how they had convinced him to assist to the reopening of Hogwarts; he still did not feel ready to face the castle or his old friends.

The journey was quick but not pleasant at all. They had to go from Toulon to Paris by apparition, and then from there to an administrative office located in the outskirts of a small English village on the shore of the English Channel. That place had been established as one of the administrative offices on the occasion of the ceremony to be held at Hogwarts, and was packed with wizards and witches waiting to go to Hogsmeade. Luckily it was at the base of extremely solitary grass-covered hills, as their clothes were blatantly flamboyant for Muggle standards. The place was like a station where passengers took the train to their destination. In this case those who didn't know or didn't want to use the apparition method to Hogsmeade had the possibility of arriving by Portkey; Harry was impressed by how many people were going to Hogsmeade. The three of them disapparated a few seconds later.

As he registered his arrival in front of two wizards from the Ministry sitting in the middle of the street on a table covered with papers and record books, Harry looked around and realized that they were at the end of the main street. As he saw the characteristic constructions of the village along the street he was glad to have come, at least for now. He loved Hogsmeade, especially a couple of shops in particular.

It was ten o'clock in the morning, and unlike France the day was cloudy and slightly cold. Bill waited his turn to check in, elegantly dressed in a suit and a dark cloak. Fleur, next to him and holding his hand, looked gorgeous in a blue dress and a coat. Harry, on the other hand, was wearing some jeans and a shirt under his jacket. Once the three of them had finished their formalities, they began to walk down the main street without any hurry.

"So this is the first time you've come to Hogsmeade since Aberforth saved and hide you at Hog´s Head?" Bill asked with some interest.

Harry nodded. He looked to his left and saw the shabby establishment at the bottom of the side street; he decided that later he would come by to visit Dumbledore's brother.

In fact, it was the first time he had returned to Hogwarts since the cemetery ceremony and the "Order of Merlin First Class" awards ceremony for all the fighters of the last battle (alive and dead) two weeks after the tragic and historic event.

"That old fool was brilliant in battle, remembeg?" added Fleur.

"Yes, only Harry could convince him to come out of his confinement and participate, right?" Bill said, touching the boy with his elbow. Harry remembered that he had barely convinced him to help him enter the Castle but perhaps he would have taken part in the battle for himself, as a former member of the original Order.

The boy smiled and changed the subject. "Thank you for joining me. I would not be able to come alone." In reality, he felt he needed company to attend such an occasion, and was deeply grateful that they came there directly from their "honeymoon" in Toulon with him.

"Just because to make suge you will assist and don't run away again," replied Fleur giggling, still holding her husband's arm.

"Yes, can you imagine if they asked us about Harry and we had to tell them that he had escaped again?" added Bill. "Some would kill me so many times they'd get bored!"

As the two laughed, Harry had a ball formed in his stomach.

"They know I was coming? But I didn't answer the owl!"

No one bothered to answer him, and they were still laughing as they passed by Zonko´s, which was closed like all stores. Many people were walking down the street, and practically all were heading in the same direction to Hogwarts. Passing through Honeydukes he tempted himself to sneak into the basement and use the secret passage to the Castle, but he remembered Neville told him that the Carrow´s had closed it.

After a few more minutes of walking and waiting, the three of them joined three other rather young boys in one of the carriages that came and went non-stop to take everyone to the Castle. Two of the boys sitting in front of them looked at Harry with their eyes wide open, and unfortunately for him, Bill noticed that.

"So you're the famous Harry Potter? The one that once broke into the Department of Mysteries and the one that assaulted Gringott´s this year?" Bill asked suddenly looking at Harry and making a colossal effort not to burst out into laughter. Fleur put his fist in her mouth not to laugh.

"Very funny. Really guys, very funny." Harry muttered embarrassed with his face of a strong red color.

The carriage advanced slowly, and while the young boys still couldn't shut their mouths at sharing the journey with him, Harry watched the thestrals pulling the carriage, imagining that because of Voldemort and his followers now everyone would be able to see them. A few minutes later, with a feeling of emptiness in his stomach, he began to spot the astonishing and complicated silhouette of his favorite place, projecting sharply above the grey sky of Hogwarts.

*****HP*****

He had spent so many months trying to forget about this place and convincing himself that he would not go back to Hogwarts (at least for a long time) that he thought it was not real to be on the grounds, amazed by the castle as if it were the first time. A castle that had given him so many good and pleasant moments and yet he could only remember the bloody images of the battle, the acromantulas and the giants terrorizing everyone and the curses crossing the dark night from all sides.

A single letter was enough to subdue his trembling will. That and a few minutes of constant insistence from Bill and Fleur. They had promised to escort him and not leave him alone, knowing that he had distanced himself from some of his best friends and that his still fresh memories would torture him.

As they walked through the entrance after getting out of the carriage, he stared absorbed at the façade in front of the castle; Bill put a hand on his shoulder, apparently worried about him.

"Are you all right?"

Harry barely nodded. Now he could see the damage that had not yet been repaired, especially on the side of the castle facing the entrance. He could see a partially destroyed section of it with huge visible holes, perhaps the part where Fred were killed. Gryffindor's tower seemed intact but as they approached he noticed traces of curses and a couple of sectors that seemed to be in reconstruction. He knew that the damage from certain dark curses would not been repaired.

He took his eyes off the castle with a knot in his throat that wouldn't let him breathe, and tried to calm himself by turning his mind blank. Already close of Hagrid's cabin (another place he would like to visit later) he looked forward and noticed a crowd in the front gardens overlooking the oak doors of the main entrance, the same place they had chosen for the ceremony where the survivals of the battle (and the death ones too) received condecorations and the Order of Merlin, First Class, about two months ago.

"We are almost there, Hagy, everything's fine!" The blonde girl encouraged him. Harry replied with a trembling smile; Fleur had no idea what he would have to go through, but he still put his hands in his pockets and sighed. The girl put an arm over his shoulder for support, which Harry replied with an umconfortable look; it made him feel like he was a suffering patient who couldn't walk alone.

"All right! Sogy!" Fleur said, withdrawing his arm and pretending to be offended.

"Don't you dare, love. Harry is a very proud boy, he never allows himself to be spoiled" replied Bill smiling, provoking a grin in the girl and a smile on Harry's face.

A couple of minutes later they were close enough to distinguish the assistants much better. There were a huge number of people there, many, many more than the previous time. Many of them were sitting in the multiple chairs, all of them arranged near the main entrance and facing the other side where a small platform was raised. In addition Harry could see a large number of people standing around the chairs and all over the terrain, walking or just talking with others.

Suddenly he heard a familiar voice calling to him.

"Harry! I was waiting for you!

"Oliver! Good to see you." said Harry as they hugged and patted each other on the back.

"Hello Bill!"

"How are you Oliver?" This is Fleur, my fiancée, you remember her, don't you?"

"I...yes of course." He greeted the girl shaking hands.

Oliver needed more than a couple of seconds to recover himself from the part-veela influence, he turned to Harry again.

"So Harry, you came! Well, many said you wouldn't come."

"Oh yeah?" he replied annoyed. "To tell you the truth, Bill and Fleur convinced me."

"Excellent, because I want to introduce you two friends who came with me."

"I..." Tried to say Harry a little surprised, but was interrupted by Bill, who was leaving with Fleur towards the crowd.

"See you Harry! We'll be around!"

"Come, they must be in the entrance hall." They left to walk to the entrance at a fast pace.

"Tell me Oliver, are you still at Puddlemere United?"

"Yes, I'm still the keeper, although I don't have many years left in the starting line-up." he replied. Harry imagined what he meant. Oliver would be about twenty two years old now and although he was still very young Quidditch was a sport that could be violent and many of the players could not stand many years in the starting teams. He still remembered the case of Philip Stookbridge a few years ago, who was considered a star with only nineteen years in his team _Ballycastle Bats_. He spent a month at St. Mungo´s because a bludger broke his head, and he had to stop playing because he couldn´t recover his memory.

As they approached the oak doors, Harry passed through many people who continued to stop and chat with each other. He began to feel uncomfortable noticing that some people were noticing him and mumbled, and even greeted him two or three times. He looked down with a slightly flushed face and hurried along following Oliver.

"Some things will never change." He thought as he walked up the marble stairs and through the entrance.

"Look, there they are." Oliver said. Two wizards were chatting with Professor McGonagall; when Minerva saw Harry, she opened her eyes behind her classic square glasses and smiled like never before.

"Harry! You've come!" She said, hugging the boy.

"How are you, professor?" Harry replied, smiling at a demonstration of such unusual affection in her.

"Fine, please meet Benjy Williams and Duncan Leroh." They both nodded to Harry. "Benjy was a Ravenclaw before your first year, and Duncan is Irish. I think I remember Oliver telling me you have business to discuss, right?"

The actual headmistress of the magical school seemed to be quite anxious.

"That's right. We came here to talk to a couple of Hogwarts students, especially Harry." Said Benjy.

"In that case, I leave and let you talk to Harry. The ceremony will begin soon so please don´t take it so long. And Harry, after you´re done, I want to have a word with you. Look for me in my office."

After Professor McGonagall retired, Oliver began to speak.

"Well, this is the Harry Potter I told you about. He was a seeker on the Gryffindor team since his first year."

Harry didn't know what that was all about, it seemed to him that those two people wanted to meet him but it seemed too much. He looked at the door and noticed that the crowd had taken up almost every seat in the front gardens.

"He's caught the Snitch in every game he's played but two. I must say that some dementors and a skull broken by a bludger were good excuses!" Oliver kept talking. The other two nodded in slight admiration. Harry lost his patience, if there was one thing he didn't need by then was a fan club.

He looked at the door again and his heart stopped as he saw Hermione passing by. It seemed that she was alone, and suddenly he felt an urgent need to run and talk to her. He felt butterflies in her stomach, and her hands began to sweat. Would she be waiting for him to come? No, he didn't believe it. He was a little disappointed when he remembered that she had not sent him a letter, although perhaps she had no way of knowing his French address.

Harry was torn between staying and continuing to listen to Oliver and his two friends or running out and looking for her. He would try to apologize to her, it was something he had been wanting to do for more than three months.

"It's Hermione. It's like your sister, she'll forgive you." Harry thought while he barely heard the other three. "But why am I so nervous...it's just Hermione, my best friend."

"Harry! Hey! Are you okay?"

The boy looked at Oliver again, back to reality. His friend's face reflected a certain exasperation, a gesture typical of him.

"Sorry, what..."

"If you want to assist to the try-outs for the team, Harry!" It was interrupted by an impatient Oliver.

Harry opened the eyes of surprise, and looked at Benjy and Duncan. Only now he realized that they both wore a blue sweater with a pair of intertwined golden reeds.

"I... sorry?" Harry swallowed saliva and for a few moments forgot to run and catch his friend.

Oliver opened his eyes and smiled nervously as he told the other two. "Excuse him, he's never like that, I swear."

"You're from the Puddlemere United?" Harry replied barely containing his euphoria.

"That's right." Duncan smiled. "We want you to assist to the try-outs next week for the Seeker reserve position."

"So? Do you accept?" Asked Oliver, still with the exasperation marked on his face.

"Of course, I'll be there!" Rarely had he felt as happy and proud as he did at that moment. He'd thought of playing professional Quidditch a couple of times while in France, but playing for Puddlemere United even as a reserve was unbelievable. It was the oldest team in England, and one of the most important. Now he was a little embarrassed to have thought they just wanted to meet him.

"Wonderful! We are going to sit down, after the end of the ceremony please coordinate with Oliver to go together next Monday. Goodbye Harry" Benjy said, and then the three of them went to the gardens; Oliver winked at him, now satisfied.

Harry stood there, alone and unable to believe that he would do a try-out for the Puddlemere that coming Monday, in only two days. He thought about looking for Hermione but surely she would already be with Ron. He didn't know what to think about his friends or how they would react to seeing him after so many fights and so much nonsense between them. However, he remembered that McGonagall wanted to talk to him so he shrugged and headed to the Director's office.

*****HP*****

Half an hour later, the joy at the news of his try-out had almost vanished. He had met Professor McGonagall halfway so as they were walking back she told Harry that there would be a small ceremony where Paul Ligier would name all those who had contributed with funds to the reconstruction of Hogwarts. Then Kingsley Shacklebolt would hand over special mentions where the Minister, Arthur Weasley and Harry himself would give a short speech to the audience present. And finally McGonagall herself would close the ceremony with the symbolic reopening of Hogwarts and a tour for all around the restored areas of the castle.

In fact, it was Hermione who originally would give the speech on Harry's behalf. But as he finally went to Hogwarts, the professor begged him to give it. She told him that she knew he didn't like to express himself in public but that he had to be courageous because many would want to hear or see him. If it weren't for the Puddlemere Harry would be repentant to be there. He hated speaking in public, especially in front of some who persecuted him or whipped him tirelessly since the end of the war.

Harry crossed the entrance hall and went out into the field just as Ligier began his speech. He couldn't see the people sitting on the chairs because many were standing facing the stage, blocking his vision, so he approached the crowd who were standing and looked for some space to observe.

The number of chairs that Harry could see were countless, and they were arranged in such a way that they formed a sort of semicircle around the front of the platform, which was a few meters to his left. Looking to the right he could see lots of people sitting among the standing people. If he also took into account the large number of people standing on the sides and behind the sea of chairs, his estimate was about two hundred people. That made his guts disappear, leaving a huge hole inside him.

"Harry," whispered someone behind him, feeling a hand on his shoulder. As he turned around, a tall redhead in a dragon-skin jacket gave him a contagious smile.

"George!" Harry said in a low, cheerful voice.

"What's up, Harry? Bill finally found you!" He whispered again as they shook hands with joy. He smiled, Harry didn't remember seeing him like since the end of the war. Time was definitely helping him recuperate from the death of his twin brother.

At that moment Ligier named the people who had contributed for the rebuilding of Hogwarts. And before he could answer George he heard his full name and a little ovation.

"Damn it, Harry! Main shareholder of Weasley´s Wizard Wheezes and now also of Hogwarts! Are you diversifying?"

Harry was surprised, as he did not remembered the amount of his contribution a few days before leaving England. He had made it on Gringott´s in a special account opened by the School Board, taking advantage of his visit to the bank to withdraw funds from his account to go to France, an appreciable amount of Galleons. He still remembered the disgusted faces of some of the bank goblins when they saw him there again.

"I didn't remember. I didn't want to tell anyone."

After Ligier finished, there was applause and then more as Shacklebolt went to the stage. Harry was getting more and more nervous. What was he going to talk about? If it were up to him, he'd just say thank you for the honorable mention and get off as soon as possible, but McGonagall would transform him into a dirty hog.

George saw his friend swallow too much saliva and asked him if he was attracted to the Minister, who at the time was giving his part of the speech.

"I see you've recovered your humour. McGonagall told me I had to give a speech after your father's."

George laughed.

"A speech? You? I've got to see that!"

Harry closed his eyes and snorted.

"Here." the redhead whispered, handing him a yellow tablet. "I gave one to my father, he doesn't like public speaking either."

Harry looked at her suspiciously. "Don't be stupid, it's our new development and we call it "_dare-it_". It calms the nerves and anxiety of those who have trouble proposing to a girl, but it works just fine on these occasions.

At that moment the Minister was giving some award or mention to Mr. Weasley, who cleared his throat and began his speech. Harry was extremely nervous, and swallowed the tablet without hesitation.

"Well done Harry! You'll see that it works quickly enough, but don't abuse because as a contraindication it can loosen your tongue a little and make you say things you don't want to say!" George said as he patted his back and went to the back with a girl.

"And now you tell me!" He bark at him, but the twin could no longer hear him.

Immediately he felt his nerves vanishing, and, more relieved, he looked among the crowd of people sitting to see if he recognized any of his friends. He could distinguish Neville and his grandmother (thanks to her giant and ridiculous hat) by the front area, Delmeza and a couple of Ravenclaw by the middle and in the back, his friend the semi-giant Hagrid standing out from all. And nothing more since it was very difficult to locate someone among the small spaces left by the people standing in front of him.

A few minutes later people applauded Arthur's speech warmly and after a brief introduction Shacklebolt named Harry, inviting him up on stage.

He had to make his way through the people who looked at him and greeted him, and as he walked to the stage he shuddered at the loud, long applause of the presents. Despite George's tablet, he blushed so much that he thought his face would explode; Bill was right, the displays of affection made him feel very uncomfortable.

He heard some screaming his name (he recognized Mrs. Weasley's voice and Seamus´s as well) as he passed between the congratulations of McGonagall and the other professors of Hogwarts. He climbed onto the platform and was immediately saluted by the Minister and three other officials behind him.

"Welcome Harry" said the Minister to the public loudly and clearly because of the _sonorus_ enchantment. Harry stood next to him at the front of the stage, and for the first time he watched the immense number of people looking at him. The pill George gave him reduced considerably his nerves, but he still felt uneasy.

"As I was telling you, Harry Potter and his friends risked everything to fight against the darkest era in history. Without their contribution and determination, who knows what our lives would have been like. His victory in the final duel against Voldemort put an end to that darkness and insanity that were destroying our whole magical community."

Harry could practically hear the silence of the audience, absorbed in Kingsley's speech. Suddenly, a shivering sensation ran through his body as he located Hermione, sitting between Ginny and Ron in the front row almost below him. His soul mate looked at him with such intensity that he felt his legs bending, and she seemed deeply surprised to see him there, and... something else that Harry could not recognize. Ron was also surprised, although when he looked at him, the redhead turned quickly his gaze towards the Minister.

"Harry Potter, the boy who lived, is now a man. He started to control his life with courage and bravery, stoically bearing countless attacks and calumnies, and passed through the difficulties that life has placed in front of him with effort but determination."

Harry smiled shyly.

"Harry, you received the Order of Merlin First Class a few months ago. It's a special, traditional and historical distinction, but this mention we give you today is ours and created especially for you."

As the Minister handed him a rectangular silver plaque, people applauded loudly but he started to feel real bad about it; he couldn´t accept that on his own, there were so many people involved in the final battle…

After a few seconds, he gain courage and began to speak. "Thank you. Thank you all for this mention and for giving me your affection." he said out loud, and instantly everyone was silent. "I'll be brief because as some of you know, I'm not good at this." Harry swallowed and looked again at Hermione, Ginny and Luna, who were smiling at him.

"It´s true, I have contributed to the fall of Voldemort's reign of terror... although we must call him Tom Riddle, his real name and which he gave up because of his Muggle origin. Yes, his father was Muggle." he clarified before the incredulous murmur of the majority. "But without the help and company of my friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and without the courage and determination of the members of the Order, the DA, the staff, the students, the neighbors of Hogsmeade and the elves, none of this would have been possible."

A brief applause and some whistles (possibly from Ron's brothers) interrupted him, and then continued.

"For many months Ron and Hermione have sacrificed everything to be by my side, even their parents. They knew that they could be killed and that they would have to suffer dangers they couldn't imagine because Tom Riddle and his followers were searching for me. But they stood by my side."

Harry took a breath. He had wet eyes and a lump in his throat. He looked at Ron and saw him sad, and Ginny embraced Hermione, both with glassy eyes.

Harry closed his eyes and a couple of seconds later continued.

"I still can't believe there are so many absent today. Children and parents, friends who have died for no reason other than the insanity of our enemies. The absence of those I loved the most and of others I hardly knew, like everyone else, hurts me enormously. Few families in the magical community have not been affected by barbarism and madness, and even some of them have been completely destroyed."

Harry looked up. The silence was generalized.

"Their deaths are irremediable. But they must be remembered forever so that those losses were not in vain. Albus Dumbledore once told me: you have to fight, fight again, and fight again... for only then you can keep evil at bay, even if you never eradicate it. I hope that we have learned the lesson, and that the Ministry will not repeat the same errors of the past."

People literally stood and began to applaud him. Harry's eyes were already dry, but when he got off the stage McGonagall hugged him in tears as Professor Flitwick and Madame Pomfrey congratulated him. Once he got rid of them Mrs. Weasley appeared out of nowhere and hugged him as only she knew how to do. She was tearing and babbling his name, and noticed that Ginny appeared and hugged them both also with tears in her eyes as well.

Harry thanked with his head or shaking his hand within lots of people who were getting closer to congratulate him, but he looked for a particular person, and after a few seconds he found her. She was staring at him, with a very shy smile and her look denoted sadness but relief from seeing him.

Harry smiled, and when she smiled back at him all those around who were greeting him ceased to exist and the noises and sounds were silenced. Hermione still had her eyes wet, and yet she was beautiful and perfect. Suddenly she started walking and wrapped him in the most wonderful and warmest hug he had ever received. Harry smiled internally and hugged her intensely, and was fascinated to feel an unmistakable sense of home that wasn't the Castle.


	7. Chapter 7- Returning home

**Chapter 7: Returning Home**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!**

**7- Returning Home**

After a lapse of time that Harry found comfortingly eternal, the two friends slowly began to separate. The boy didn't like the feeling of letting her go, partly because the sounds and people around him reappeared and disturbed him, but mostly because Hermione's hugs always made him feel good. Omitting his parents, she was the first person to hug him in his life, and the first to show him sincere affection.

Harry looked at her a bit flushed. He was confused by the unconceivable sensations he had never felt before, not even with Ginny. Hermione slowly raised her eyes and looked at him with her bright brown eyes. He was once again surprised to see her flushed cheeks and a strange look. His friend was definitely as confused and shocked as he was.

He was embarrassed. Hermione watched him intensely like never before with a penetrating, longing gaze, making his blood bustle. She looked down and swallowed, perhaps embarrassed too, and only then he remembered what he wanted to say to her desperately since ever.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione. Please forgive me." He said with a barely audible whisper full of regret.

The girl looked up but this time sweetness and tenderness were replaced by fury. Harry instantly understood what was coming to him, he knew her so much.

"Of course I forgive you, Harry Potter! Here I am, your friend, so you can yell at me when you want to vent your anger on someone! And when you decide to go away again, here I am, so that you can abandon me and disappear without a trace!"

Hermione ended up shouting what she had begun to say quietly, turned around and left furiously for her seat. Though he somehow expected it, she had never been angry with him like that. He looked around and noticed that many were still sitting and others were returning to their seats, and was a little relieved to think that no one had heard her until he felt someone behind him.

"I can't say you don't deserve it Harry." Mr. Weasley said with one hand on his shoulder. His wife was next to him and nodded firmly. "From what you said in your speech we can understand you since you had your good reasons, but disappear like that, without anyone knowing where to find you..." She concluded, pursing his mouth and shaking his head slightly from side to side in a sign of disagreement.

"Harry, my son. I appreciate your letters, but to run away like that was irresponsible. What if something happened to you? Yes, I know that Vol - Volde... (Molly made an effort to say that name) Tom Riddle is no more," she continued at Harry's attempt to interrupt. "But you didn't choose a good time to leave even though you had your reasons. You all were angry between yourselves but your departure ended up really hurting them... and us too."

At last the other thing he was so afraid to face was taking place: the reactions of Hermione and the Weasley (especially Mrs. Weasley). Harry knew that he had many reasons to leave, and he really didn't regret it. But internally he knew that he had hurt people who loved him and always cared about him.

"I'm sorry, miss Weasley. I never meant to hurt you, you are like my own family." He said ashamed looking at the floor. He didn't know what else to say; Molly smiled sadly and rested her hand on the boy's crossed arms, as her answer.

"I really hope you come to the Burrow for dinner tonight. Kingsley will come, Minerva and all the Weasley will be there too." Arthur said.

Harry was surprised. At that moment he felt bad about himself and didn't think he deserved it.

"I don´t..."

"We will be waiting for you." Molly said, and they went to their seats as Professor McGonagall began her closing speech.

The reopening was brief but emotional. When Professor McGonagall concluded her speech (once again thanking all those who had contributed) she stepped off the stage and went to the main entrance of the castle. The huge oak doors were completely covered by a kind of shiny golden cloth with Hogwarts' coat of arms in the middle. Once there she said a few words in Latin aiming her wand at the shield, and suddenly the lion, the badger, the snake, and the eagle in the symbol came to life and emitted their natural sounds. The cloth gradually disappeared as the shield kept floating in place. The people, crowded around the marble stairs, cheered the spectacle while the oak doors opened to give way to the tour through the reconstructed sectors that had been fixed for the new class year.

After almost everyone entered, Harry prepared to follow the crowd when a hand grabbed his arm.

"Hello Harry! Can I join you on the tour?"

Harry could not help but smile and let himself be hugged by his blonde friend who was so dear to him.

"Sure Luna!"

After passing under the shield, they entered the entrance hall and followed the path marked with rows of stars that remained immobile at about three meters high. Apparently they showed the sectors and corridors that were reopened, and that way nobody would get lost or get into sectors that had not been restored.

"How´s your father?" asked the boy.

"Oh, he didn't come. He is still ashamed of what happened."

"Tell him it's nonsense. He did it because he was desperate to get you back."

"Yes, I know. That's strange, isn't it?"

"What?" Harry asked, hoping for some of her characteristics phrases.

"That he wanted to get you, so he would recover me. He idolized you, you were the only hope to end Vol... Tom Riddle, but If he gave you to them, hope was over. I still don't understand what sense it made for him to recover me in the midst of so much darkness and evil."

Harry smiled sadly as they passed through one of the corridors full of people admiring the restored paintings. The consequences of the war and its implications were endless, and they had caused a disaster that would be very difficult to repair.

"Luna, a father would do anything for his son. My father tried to stop Riddle without a wand, and my mother got in the way of the _Avada Kedavra_ to save me. She didn't think at that time that if she died anyway I would be helpless before him, but she sacrifice anyway". Harry remembered, but to not complicate things he avoided telling her that this sacrifice gave his son the power of love in his blood and ended up being a decisive weapon in Voldemort's defeat.

Luna looked at him with his huge eyes wide open, and smiled slightly, looking forward. She squeezed his arm tighter with hers and whispered in his broken voice:

"Thank you Harry."

After visiting the Great Dining Room (Harry asked Luna to leave, to which she agreed without hesitation to see his face marked with pain and suffering) and some classrooms on the ground and first floor, both reached the entrance to Gryffindor's common room. Fat Lady's painting was open so they entered without any password.

They immediately noticed some people gathered in the center of the room, listening to Professor Sprout.

"The Gryffindor Tower was the most damaged during the battle, and it was one of the Hogwarts places where more galleons were needed. Of course the damage caused by dark magic cannot be repaired, as you may have seen from the outside, but I must tell you that it looks almost as good as it did before."

And it was true. Harry looked nostalgic at every detail, as it had been more than a year since last time there. A few minutes later and after Harry went up to see his bedroom where he had slept so many nights, the two friends decided to go to the Tower of Ravenclaw at Luna's request.

They entered the common room in Ravenclaw without having to answer any question, as the door was also open. And as in Gryffindor's room, some people (in this case about fifteen) were in the center of it, around Professor McGonagall; she saw them enter and smiled winking at them.

"As I was saying, the Tower of Ravenclaw was one of the sectors most affected by the battle. With the exception of the external battlements, the rest could be restored except for the marble replica of the diadem, which is lost forever. And it was here that the Carrow´s, who subjugated the school by then, were stunned and defeated before the start of the battle precisely by the two people who had just entered!"

Both Harry and Luna opened their eyes surprised by the improvisation of the actual headmistress, who proudly looked at them with a wide smile. The people who were there turned around and when they saw Harry and Luna, they shouted with astonishment and some applause. She looked at her friend and noticed that she was petrified by such an unexpected tribute.

"Wow! I didn't remember, did you?" Luna asked Harry when they were already on their way to the exit and he found an answer to the surprise.

"Well, no, neither did I." Harry replied.

The restoration had been excellent. Harry had to recognize that the reconstructed sectors looked practically the same as before, and the armors, portraits and furniture damaged during the barbarity looked impeccable. However, some sectors Harry wanted to go to were closed to the public as they were not allowed to the public and would not be used for some time. And they both felt sad and disappointed when one of the teachers told them that the Room of Requirements had been completely destroyed beyond repair. The place where the DA used to meet in secret and the refuge of the students rebelled against the Carrows had been incinerated by FiendFyre; they grabbed each other's arms with sadness and nostalgia and headed for the exit.

As they walked down the stairs to the lobby, Harry continued to greet those who came and went. They had crossed paths with Seamus and Dean, and they agreed to meet at The Three Broomsticks the next week. They had also come across Patil twins and Lavender, Ernie, Katie and Angelina, with whom he talked for a few minutes. He did not know many of people around there, and he thought that they were relatives of students or guests in general.

But he didn't meet any of his best friends. He was dying to go around the castle with Ron, Hermione, Neville or Ginny, and to remember old times and adventures. But he found them nowhere. Finally Luna said goodbye as they went out into the fields.

"Goodbye Harry, I must go home."

"Take care, will you?"

"Yes, you too. See you next week at The Three Broomsticks!" She said, kissed him on the cheek and walked to the castle entrance. The sunset was close and there were few people left in the castle. He looked at her as she was leaving and saw Hagrid's hut, remembering that he wanted to go and visit him. It was still early to go to the Burrow, and Bill had sent his backpack with the things he had brought from France to Weasley's home.

An hour later, Harry was saying goodbye to Hagrid and Fang, promising to return soon to visit him. It was already getting dark, and he was thinking to visit Aberforth in Hog´s Head when he noticed the proximity of the forbidden forest.

He stood there watching the thickness and darkness of the forest where his life had been in danger so many times. He glanced nervously at the hut to make sure that Hagrid wasn´t seeing him and turned his gaze to the forest. There was something he had wished to do for a long time, something that the deepest part of his mind yearned for and that he would not be able to avoid doing.

The forest seemed to call him from its noises of foliage moving with the wind or from the sounds of distant creatures. He began to approach prudently, step by step as he made up his mind. It was not an easy thing to do, and with the darkness approaching he would need courage. He realized that he was making the same path as when he surrender to Voldemort a few months ago. If he set out to do so even then knowing that he would be executed, he would have to be able to do so this time even though he had never entered alone.

Already within the limits of the forest, he walked searching with his light wand for the path which headed to the heart of the forest and the nest of the acromantulas. Harry trembled, partly from the expectation of finally realizing a deep, spinning desire inside his head, and partly from the vivid memory of the last time he was in there, marching towards his cruel destiny and willing to die to avoid more absurd deaths, accompanied by his loved ones.

The silence was terrifying and not a single bird could be heard. His ears were alert for any clicking or dangerous sounds and continued walking, wand in hand. A couple of times he stopped frightened at a noise, but continued his way convincing himself they were typical forest noises. He did not know if the acromantulas really had returned to their nest or had gone elsewhere after the death-eaters had taken their place; that was the part of the plan he feared the most.

His ears were buzzing. Suddenly he heard noises of branches crunching behind him. Petrified, he turned with the wand aiming to the area where the noises came from, and after a few seconds he turned around and resumed his way again. He still saw the sky between some tall trees, so he realized that he had not yet reached the thickest and most dangerous part of the forest. The light from his wand was strong but insufficient, it could barely illuminate a few meters around.

At every step Harry was more and more terrified, but he sensed (hoped) that his final goal was worth it. Suddenly he stopped with his eyes wide open at the faint sound of his name. He began to illuminate with his wand to all sides, looking for the source of the sound when he heard his name again, this time closer. It was not possible, thought Harry with his nerves on edge, it was nothing more than his brain deceiving him. No one could be calling him. The buzz in his ears was annoying, perhaps that mixed with the noises of the forest had played a trick on him.

"Harry!"

No, he had definitely heard someone shout his name. He turned with his wand and his blood froze again when he saw a shadow about fifteen or twenty meters away. It didn't move, and neither did he.

"Harry! It´s you?" The voice shouted again, and then a light suddenly appeared. The shadow began to walk towards him, and when it was a few meters away Harry couldn´t believe it.

"Hermione! What are you doing here?"

"Harry?" the girl asked, apparently even more terrified than Harry.

When her friend was sure it was Harry, she came closer but looked nervously in all directions.

"What are you doing here?"

"I ask you just the same, Harry!" Her voice was a whisper.

"I was... you were the one shouting my name?"

"Of course! I saw you standing outside the forest and then you got in here." The girl kept whispering. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Harry didn't know what to say to her. Suddenly everything was so ridiculous, and his original idea now turned to be dangerous and irrational... but he felt the desire still boiling inside him. Hermione's face went from reflecting fear to panic, and her eyes widened even more, suddenly understanding what her stupid friend were doing there.

"Harry, tell me you are not looking for that bloody stone." His tone of voice (or whisper) frightened Harry.

"No!" Answered, and quickly lowered his eyes to the ground so as not to give himself away. She hated lying to her friend, and Hermione had the ability to "read him" in a second.

A distant noise echoed in the silence, and both pointed their wands towards the same spot with their hair on end. After a few seconds, they looked at each other again and he felt the intensity of her gaze.

"You are lying!"

"Damn." thought Harry, and with a gesture of annoyance he snapped at her in frustration:

"Fine! So what?" Harry challenged her, realizing too late how mistaken he was.

"So what? So what?" she shrieked enraged.

"Shhhhh!"

"Don't make me shut up Harry Potter! Are you insane? You told us that you threw the stone into the nest of the acromantulas! Do you want those beasts to devour you?"

Strangely enough, Harry smiled when he heard his friend call him by his full name. He always called it that when she was angry with him and for some reason liked it, but the laughter faded away at the thought of being surrounded by acromantulas willing to eat him.

"No! I don't want that! But I wasn't sure if they were there, maybe they went to some place else..."

"Maybe? Maybe?" Hermione was getting more and more hysterical. "Very bad idea Harry, very bad idea!"

"I need to see them again, Hermione! Don't you get it?" Now it was Harry screaming.

The girl was left with her mouth open, unable to say anything.

"I saw them. They came out of the Resurrection Stone and I really saw them. Right here a few months ago, and they accompanied me to where Voldemort was. My father, my mother, Sirius and Remus. They walked with me, talked to me and..." Harry shut up. The knot in his throat wouldn't let him talk and his eyes got wet by the memory, but he wanted to go on because he had never told anyone what they told him. "My parents encouraged me and told me how proud they were of me, Sirius gave me courage to tell me that dying was not painful, and Remus lamented not being able to enjoy his son Teddy."

Harry closed his eyes. He wanted to retain those images forever. He wanted to see them again, in despair.

"They were so real, Hermione. If it hadn't been for them I wouldn't have been able to go alone where Voldemort and the death-eaters were waiting for me. I want... to see them again. I miss them very much."

Harry looked up. There was so much understanding in his eyes, so much love and affection.

Hermione approached and suddenly put her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly. Harry put his arms around her neck and leaning his cheek on her friend's hair closed his eyes.

His parents smiled at him, as did Sirius and Remus. They looked happy and so real that Harry automatically opened his eyes as if waiting to see them there in front of him like a few months ago. But he was disappointed to see only darkness and tree trunks.

He frowned, confused. He wiped his eyes with one hand and separated a few inches from Hermione. Following an impulse he took her face with both hands. It was dark as they had put their wands away, but the clearing over them allowed him to see her. He had to recognize that she was beautiful, and only Merlin knew for how long Hermione had that warm and deep look that penetrated him and making him feeling things he had never felt with her before.

Harry smiled at her and with his thumbs wiped the moisture away from her tears. He realized that her face was perfect in his hands, and that she liked it. Hermione smiled back, but a few seconds later she became serious.

"You desperately want to look for that stone, don't you?"

Harry could only nod. He lowered his hands slowly and put them in his pockets.

Hermione closed her eyes and sighed. He pulled out his wand and with a _lumos_ she illuminated his friend´s face to see him better.

"Harry. That's not a good idea. That stone is... black magic." She concluded, finding no other word to describe the Relic she least liked. She was whispering again, and with her free hand she clung to one of Harry's arms. "There is no magic that revives the dead, you know that, somehow the stone..."

"Hermione, you don't know how the stone works, you don't know what it feels like to see them."

"No, I don't know. You only see them because they are inside your head, your memories, maybe the stone is just a catalyst..."

Harry was losing his patience: it would take a lot of effort for him to keep whispering, and he interrupted her again:

"I'm not interested in how that stone works, I need... "Now it was Hermione who interrupted, not being convinced by her friend.

"No! You don't need it! Don't you understand? They are in your mind, in your heart, in your memories! The... dead must be left to... rest... in peace." Hermione could barely talk about nerves; Harry knew the terror she felt about everything to do with death and could understand very well what she felt when she saw him want to go into a dangerous part of the forest risking meeting giant spiders to take the stone and relive dead people, even if they was inside his head.

"You must not hold on to the past, it is not healthy and it will not do you any good. You must live the present and the future, move on. Please Harry." She had calmed down a little but her tone was one of supplication. The girl put her hand over Harry's crossed arms and looked at him a few centimeters away, imploring him with her gaze.

For so many months, since the battle and especially since he activated the stone on the way to his sacrifice (and saw them by his side), he longed to look for it, he desired it vehemently. But a few words from his friend ended up everything.

"Harry. Please."

Hermione squeezed his hand even more. Harry looked at her and nodded. He still wanted to look for the stone but surrendered to the presence and persistence of his friend.

She smiled satisfied. "Thank you Harry, I can't even imagine what it feels like, but it's the right thing to do. Now let's please get out of here."

They marched out of the forest holding hands. They weren't going too fast, Harry wasn't in a hurry and apparently Hermione wasn't either. The forest wasn't so scary at that point, and it even looked like a romantic walk. That idea made the boy smile, and thanks to the dim light the girl didn't notice.

"Will you go to the Burrow for dinner?" asked Harry a few minutes later.

"Yes."

"Are you still mad at me?"

Harry looked at her and saw her anger contained, but only nodded her head. Apparently the letters he had sent to her weren´t useful.

"Have you read my letters?" Harry continued, tempting luck. He could already see some lights coming from Hogwarts.

The girl nodded again without articulating a word, but her fury was gone. After a few seconds he took another risk.

"I would have love to get a letter from you, you know?"

Steadily walking and looking forward, Hermione replied:

"I didn't know where to send it. That's what you wanted, right?" she said.

"No. It wasn't what I wanted." he replied in grief. His heart began to pound as he noticed his friend squeezed her hand tightly intertwining her fingers with his.


	8. Chapter 8- Making up for lost time

**Chapter 8: Making up for lost time**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!**

**8- Making up for lost time**

It was almost nine o'clock at night and Harry was already late for dinner at the Burrow. The night was clear and quite humid, and a little less cold than in Scotland. He stood just away from the anti-appearance protections that surrounded Andromeda Tonks' house and turned to watch the place again. Its lights were still on and a couple of areas repaired after the impact of some curses were visible. Hermione had left for the Weasley´s after they left the forest (she had promised to help Molly in the kitchen) and he wanted to spend some time visiting Teddy, his godson.

It was a nice house, too big for just an old witch and a baby, and he went to visited him for the first time. But in the hour and a half he was there talking with Andromeda, the almost four-month-old baby slept nonstop in his cradle.

A light on the ground floor went out, which meant that the widow was about to go upstairs to sleep. It was not a very good experience for him to have come, but he had to. Ted was almost alone and Harry made the promise to do everything he could to make him part of his life. But Andromeda, in addition to still being depressed by the loss of her husband and especially her only daughter, had been cold and distant with him. They didn't know each other, and he had never seen her except the time they "landed" with Hagrid a few months ago.

It was a strange situation to him. He was relieved when he noticed the love with which she cared for her metamorphmagus grandson, but knew that it would be very difficult for him to gain the lady's trust, especially since she had learned of his three-month "runaway" to France. Andromeda was angry about it, and he didn't know what to do; it didn´t help at all that Andromeda was the living image of her death sister Bellatrix. However, he did not doubt that he would end up loving Teddy. His tragic fate was the same as his, and just as he would have given anything for Sirius to have been present in his childhood, he would do anything to be present in the life of his godchild. Fate had tied him to a Black, and now a descendant of a branch "expelled" from the noble and ancestral family was tied to him.

He sighed. The night wrapped him with amazing strength, and the sight of some stars among the dark clouds subdued him. Looking at the stars made him happy, but at the same time made him feel like the loneliest person in the world. He knew that there were many people who loved him and that many of them were waiting for him at that moment in the Burrow, but he could not fight against his feelings of loneliness or against the anguish of not belonging...

Up there, to the north, he could spot Polaris, his favorite star. Brilliant and lonely. Like an eye in the sky that used to guide and protect him (at least he used to believe that), as it had guided travelers and adventurers for centuries.

*****HP*****

A couple of minutes later he appeared in the vicinity of the Burrow. He began to walk observing the strange house that could only be kept standing by magic, with his thoughts yet fixed on Teddy. It was his second favorite place in the world, but the image of the house reactivated the memories of his last visit a few months ago, just before running away to France.

_"GET LOST!"_

The anguish squeezed his heart. His knees loosened a little and he hesitated. He stopped walking to get back on his feet and be able to resume his way.

_"Leave Hermione and me alone, and my family! And stay away from Ginny!"_

He closed his eyes, sighed, and asking for permission to her legs began to walk again. He was a bundle of nerves. He was always happy in the Burrow and now he could barely get to the door.

_"What do you want me to do, Harry? Tell me! Do you want me to leave? I will! Do you want me not to talk to you? Fine!_

_"No Ginny, I don't want that."_

_"Then talk to me! For Merlin´s sake, you're locking yourself and you don't let anyone come near you to..."_

_"I don't want anyone to help me! I don't want you to pity me, Ginny!"_

_His girlfriend's silence was cold and ruthless._

_"You weren't like that. You always had enemies and you weren't like that. Now you don't have them and..." She regretted what she was about to say and went on. "It's this house, isn't it? This house isn't helping you."_

_"It's my parents' house." Harry said laconically._

_"Move, you've got money. You can go wherever you want."_

_Harry didn't answer. After a few seconds of silence, Ginny continued:_

_"This is not working, Harry. You barely talk to me, we barely touch ourselves and you are getting away from everyone, I'm willing to wait for you but you're impossible. You need help, someone who..."_

_"I don't need anyone's help, Ginny, don´t you understand?"_

_"Well, that's okay! I'll go away so I won't bother you anymore! And mark my words, I will never come to this bloody house again, Harry! I hate being here!"_

Harry was almost over the door. They were all inside, he could hear them laughing and talking. The warmth of the Burrow had always been a blessing to him, but he was having trouble knocking on the door to announce his arrival.

_"GET LOST!"_

Ron´s scream was still echoing in his ears, and his blood froze. He realized that he was still remembering some of the saddest moments of his life. He took courage and knocked on the damn wooden door.

*****HP*****

"Come on, Harry, tell them!"

Everyone was sitting around the table enjoying the dinner that Mrs. Weasley had prepared. He was near the head of the table where Shacklebolt was sitting; the other head was occupied by Arthur. In front of him were Bill and Fleur, and Hermione, Ron and Ginny were near the other head. Ron's cold distance had affected him, but Ginny seemed to be a little more receptive with him; neither Percy nor Charlie had been able to be there.

Harry looked at Mcgonagall who was sitting next to Molly. She was asking him to tell everyone about the try-outs at Puddlemere United. It had been about ten minutes since the boy had arrived and he noticed with some discomfort that the conversations between them had been interrupted by his arrival. Everyone greeted him warmly, but Hermione and Ginny barely smiled at him from their chairs, and Ron did not even look at him.

"Tell us Harry, what it is?" asked Molly anxiously.

Luckily the boy's mouth was full of potatoes and he couldn't answer. He knew what the professor was talking about and he was dying to tell everyone, but he feared the reaction of younger ones, especially Ron.

"Oh what the hell!" Said the headmistress, "I can't take it anymore. Harry was invited to a try-out for Puddlemere United, as a reserve seeker!"

The table filled with opened mouths and astonished looks for the news, and silence reigned for a few seconds until George and Bill reacted.

"Wow Harry, congratulations!"

"The Puddlemere is great, you'll be with Oliver!" Bill added as he stretched across the table and hit him on the crown of his head. Everyone congratulated him, except for the ones he expected the most.

After a couples of hugs of Molly and Fleur, all of them spent several minutes talking about the Puddlemere and Quidditch. Harry had well received the congratulations of them, even from Hermione and Ginny, but very badly the indifference of Ron. He looked at Ron from time to time and noticed how uncomfortable he was, eating with his eyes fixed on his plate and occasionally exchanging words with Hermione or Ginny, without getting involved in the conversation about Quidditch. His friend was having a really bad time in his own house and with his own family, and he didn't even want to get involved in the sports talk he liked the most. Hermione turned to Ron and after passing him a piece of bread said something to his ear that made him smile, patted him on the shoulder and kissed his cheek. Harry stared at his plate, mortified by sadness. His friends wouldn't even speak to him. He wanted to hit Ron just for all the things he said before he left the country, but he felt sorry that he was so uncomfortable in his own house.

"WHAT?"

Startled, he looked in terror at Arthur who had been the one who had roared. He had not noticed that the whole table was looking at him.

"Yes, just as you heard it. Bill told me everything."

"Why didn't you tell me anything about it?" Arthur asked angrily to his oldest son.

"I didn't get a chance, okay?" Bill answered unwillingly.

"But... it can't be possible! Death-eaters in France? Harry please tell us what happened!" Now it was Molly who was alarmed.

"Oh... well..." Harry didn't know where to start. Everyone looked at him with a frightened face, but Hermione's gaze was one of complete dread.

Fleur rolled his eyes and decided to speak for him. "Two attacked him while Hagy was sending a letter, and then the next day anotheg two in his house in Fgance."

"Don't worry Molly, Fleur's father works at the French Ministry of Magic and they have already contacted us informing us that they are investigating the two attacks. I must say that Bill, Fleur and Harry captured them and kept them locked up. Next week they may be extradited to England." Explained the minister.

"Don't worry, you say?" Molly began to be furious, to which Arthur reacted and stopped her by interrupting him.

"Molly, will you calm down? Harry, did you recognize them?"

"I think one was Scabior, a marauder. The rest didn't."

Molly put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him in disconsolation.

"How did they know he was in France?" McGonagall asked still stunned.

"No one knows. The French Ministry doesn't have many resources as the English. They didn´t detected those magical entgances to the country." Fleur said and then looked at Harry. "My fatheg is very grateful to you Hagy."

"That's right." Bill nodded. "When we went to the French Ministry to testify, Mr. Delacour and the vice minister did not stop hugging him and thanking him."

"I must ask why so much gratitude in such high-ranking officials." Kingsley asked with a brief smile. Harry always had the feeling that Kingsley was always aware of everything.

"Well, ´cause he saved my life, didn't you, Hagy?" The French woman said gently and gratefully. "He threw me to the ggound when they casted a killing curse at me."

Again everybody looked at him, stunned. Ron was finally looking at him, preoccupied, and Hermione was about to explode. Fleur looked at him thoughtfully and intensely, and added:

"Even though he was having pgoblems…" She interrupted herself and asked him for permission with her gaze; Harry looked at her and shrugged slightly. Sooner or later they would find out because the officials who questioned him were surprised by the failure of Harry Potter's magic.

"…With his magic." Ended the French witch.

If everyone was alarmed before, now they didn't even move a muscle. Tired by the situation, Harry sighed and dared to look at them all, hoping that someone would say something and that they would break that silence that was really bothering him. He noticed that Fleur looked at Hermione a couple of times, and his friend was petrified with her eyes fixed on her empty plate.

"Harry, is that... possible?" George asked in a whisper.

No one was talking, and no one was looking anywhere but him. He looked at George but Kingsley answered first.

"Well... it's very unusual, but it's possible." Even the Minister could not have imagined this, he looked thoughtful and worried.

"And how did he save you when you were on the floor, if Harry couldn't... do magic?" McGonagall asked, trying to understand.

"With a geduct." Fleur said, and instantly opened his eyes, looking at Harry as if she was aware of something.

"A _Reduct_?" Molly, Arthur, George and McGonagall questioned at the same time as if they had practiced it.

"Yes." Harry finally said, and explained. "I hadn't been able to cast the stunning spell twice and when I was on the ground with Fleur I used that spell to win some time."

"And you did it!"

"Yes, I got very angry because of the killing curse they thrown at you."

Fleur smiled as Bill hugged her.

"Somebody can explain to me why Harry can't do magic," Molly asked after a few seconds, his voice barely audible.

For some reason Harry believed that Hermione would raise her hand anxious to answer, but she did not.

"Well, our magical core responds to our state of mind, and Harry has been very depressed because... well you know." Bill had begun to explain what he believed but didn´t continued, apparently not to make things worse.

"I never heard that happen... bloody hell Harry, what about your _Patronus_?" asked George in consternation.

Harry only shook his head, getting a snort of frustration from the twin. He noticed an atmosphere similar to a funeral, as if they thought his magic would never return. But he clung to what Bill had told him about the relation between his mood and his magical core, and hoped that his magic would return in time.

"Well, I remember Bilius, his magic was out of control when he lost his mind." Arthur reasoned.

"But why he could cast the _Reducto_?" Ginny questioned unexpectedly.

Fleur raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and commented: "Well, the geduct is not a spell that depends on feelings, true?"

"Possibly." Kingsley answered. "You were ambushed for the first time in Gap, is it right?"

"Yes, and Bill and Fleur stunned them." Answered Harry.

Kingsley looked at the boy. "So they caught you by surprise, couldn´t you defend yourself?"

"I was caught without the wand... so what?" Harry justified himself against Bill's annoyed gesture and Kingsley's stunned face. "I didn't think it was necessary, my wand was useless anyway..."

"Thank Merlin that Mad-Eye didn't hear that, otherwise he'd kill you with his own hands." George said very slowly with a small mocking smile; Harry smiled as he imagined it.

He noticed that Ron was very thoughtful, and Hermione a bit dejected, when even a few minutes ago she was in a good mood and conversational. He hated seeing her like that and would do anything to cheer her up but that was literally impossible.

"Well." the Minister sighed. "Either way this coming Wednesday you will have to go to the Ministry, Harry, to testify. I must confess that there was a commotion when the French Minister of Magic himself sent us a notification about what had happened."

Harry got pissed. Thinking about going to the Ministry to declare and testify really annoyed him, he was still traumatized by the court hearing he had to attend because of the attack of the two dementors in Little Whinging, and he still had fresh memories of many who managed to escape and who claimed to have been under the _Imperius_ curse during the last hearings a few months ago, after the end of the battle.

"And it would be good for you two to come too." He told Bill and Fleur who nodded without hesitation.

"Do I need witnesses?" Harry asked sarcastically.

"Not as witnesses, Harry. Just to corroborate the facts and give them legal and irrefutable consistency."

"You talk as if they won't believe me."

"They will believe you, Harry, it's just a legal formality."

"They didn't believe me when I told them that the death-eaters who hadn't been captured and those who escaped would be still active." Harry said, chewing his rage with his eyes fixed somewhere on the table. "Paranoid was the least they told me."

Kingsley only nodded. The table was quiet again, and spirits were on the floor. Harry had the feeling of having ruined the evening, and he was starting to want to return to Godric Hollow.

"You find trouble even running away from them, Harry. Even in France," George said, breaking the silence.

"No, problems usually find me."

After a while, the conversations changed the subject and Harry felt relieved. He never liked being the center of attention, and now that the talk was drifting to the most diverse topics he felt less pressure and calmer.

"So Arthur, congratulations on your speech. Surely it will be in the Prophet tomorrow!" Kingsley exclaimed, lifting his glass. "And you too, Harry, your speech was very emotional and really impacted us, even if you've been a little hard on someones!"

"Amen," Bill greeted with his cup.

"I still can't believe how well the two of you spoke in front of so many people!" Mrs. Weasley laughed. "I honestly thought you both hated that!"

"Oh well, George helped us a little, didn't he, Harry?" Arthur winked at him in a gesture of complicity. "He gave us one of those tablets to calm and release tension before public speechs."

George choked on the beer he was drinking and was coughing and laughing for a long time until he was finally able to speak.

"I gave you and Harry some common vanilla tablets. We don't have that kind of product in the business."

Harry's eyes were popping out, he should have imagined he wasn't going to come out unscathed from the help the twin had so selflessly offered him. While everyone was still celebrating George's occurrence, Mr. Weasley continued with the same gesture on his face as Harry until he could react.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Laughter was widespread, and even Harry ended up laughing even though he was still terrified by what he said to so many people deceived by a fake tranquilizer tablet. But the only person who didn't seem to share the widespread laughter was his best friend.


	9. Chapter 9- Eye in the sky

**Chapter 9: Eye in the sky**

**Disclaimer: All characters belongs to J. K. Rowling!**

**9- Eye in the sky**

The day after dinner at Weasley´s was peaceful until noon. Harry had left quite late the night before, and returned to Potter Cottage in Godric Hollow. None of them wanted him to go back to that house because they knew how bad Harry felt there. George offered him to spend the night in his own flat just above his store in Diagon Alley, and even Ginny begged him not to go back to his parents' house. But Harry was determined and told them it was temporary until he found a place to live, though Hermione's annoyed look almost convinced him.

After the war was over, the boy decided to return to his parents' house and live there for a while until he choose what to do with his life. The press drove him crazy and chased him day and night so with the help of Professor Flitwick and Hermione as secret guardian Harry restored the _Fidelius_ enchantment, broken by the death of his parents.

Actually, the house had been well restored. He had changed most of the furniture and had equipped the place with some "muggle" comforts such as electricity, a television and some kitchen appliances that he knew how to use thanks to his uncles (or because of them). He didn't want a house full of candles and gas lanterns and for the first time in his life he felt he could have a place to live on his own. But no one could repaired his room upstairs, where the killing curse destroyed part of the ceiling and wall. Besides, he would never use again the room where his mother had died to protect him, anyway.

But it had been a mistake, and just some days later he realized he couldn't live there, or at least not at that moment. Though too young to remember anything, Voldemort's visions of his parents' murder had stuck to his brain as if they were his own. Every time he was at the stairs he could _see_ his father's body lying lifeless on the floor, and some nights he used to wake up startled, swearing that he had heard his mother's screams.

Only a few days after he decided to move there he was already irritable from lack of sleep and tortured with the memories of his deceased parents. At that time he was having problems with reporters who besieged him at all times, and he was also having strong discussions with some Ministry officials about some death-eaters which inexplicably (for him) escaped. To make things worse, his friends hardly came to visit him because of his increasingly unsociable character, and he argued in a daily basis with Ginny over the same issues. When Ron stopped talking to him (after his many fights) because he found out that Hermione was his secret guardian, his life became hell; only his best friend dared to go to visit him and tolerate his hermetic and bad mood.

"If this house had a room and a bed on the ground floor..." Harry thought when he woke up on the three-body couch. It was comfortable but he still had a sore back and a numb neck. He went out into the backyard and when he realized it was almost midday he got annoyed.

"Damn." He muttered. He wanted to go to the Diagon Alley to buy a Quidditch kit and a broom for the next day´s try-outs in the Puddlemere, hoping that the store would be open. It was already late, so he took his backpack containing the little he had brought from France and left to the Leaky Cauldron to have a late breakfast there.

He was still thinking of going back to his house in the outskirts of Toulon to get the rest of his things when he sat at one of the tables in the dark bar with a steaming cup of coffee (despite the bartender's displeasure) and the Prophet in his hand. Instantly he frowned as he saw the front page.

_"Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts!"_

_"The Battle of Hogwarts hero returns to his beloved school at the reopening ceremony. His emotional speech was applauded by all, although it contained some critics to the press and the Ministry. More information on pages 2 and 3, his full speech on page 4. What did the officials say about it on pages 4 and 5."_

After reading the small title over a picture of Hogwarts, Harry smiled maliciously and swallowed a good sip of coffee. He hated that paper but one of the many things he had learned from Hermione was that you had to know what the enemy was saying about you.

Another important headline on the left of the cover was dedicated to the Minister and his successful speech about reconstruction of damaged places, the money spent and the controversial start of classes.

_"The reconstruction of the magical community will take a lot of time and all our strength and will. But we must do everything in our power to give our community the assurances and guarantees that everything will go back to the way it was before. That's why Hogwarts will open this year with half the school still disabled. So that we don't lose an entire year without our children receiving an education. So that the transition stage towards rebuilding our community will not be so traumatic. And to give the community a sense of continuity and effort to keep the Castle open, the bastion of our magical community and..." Full speech pages 6 to 8."_

But what really bothered him was the photograph on the next page, which would not go unnoticed to Ron: he and Hermione hugging when they met at school, with a little explanation underneath it: _"The heroes of the Battle of Hogwarts meet again after Harry Potter's return from France."_

"Nice." He sighed resignedly. "Another problem. Bloody fucking newspaper."

He was surprised to see that there was no news about what happened with the death-eaters affair in France, but sooner or later they would know and there would be another bomb exploding in his hands and many reporters asking him stupid questions like _"Did you know there were death-eaters in France?" _or_ "Are you really sure they wanted to attack you?"_

How he hated politics! And even more he hated the sector of the press that brazenly lied to manipulate the news by taking the side of the highest bidder.

He threw the newspaper on the table and finished his coffee. Luckily the Leaky Cauldron was almost empty so there were no curious people looking at him. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind to forget the problems and enjoy his shopping at his favorite store: "_Quality Quidditch Supplies_."

*****HP*****

Three hours later, Harry sat on the couch of his house in Godric Hollow without being able to wait to open the packages he had bought. It had been a long time since he had felt so happily anxious, and he was very satisfied with his acquisitions at the Quidditch store; the list of things he had to buy for the try-outs was long but he could managed to get everything.

He first opened those he was least interested in: reinforced leather shoes and leather gloves (the rest of the equipment would be provided by the Puddlemere). He also opened the small package containing an official golden snitch, in case he wanted to ride his broom and practice.

And finally the package he was waiting for: a long, narrow one that he unwrapped in a second to admire the content, holding it religiously with his two hands: a stunning 97 Series Firebolt. Harry couldn´t stop watching the brand new broomstick, every line, every twig of the back and every golden letter engraved in the wood: license number, a small symbol of the broom manufacturer and his magically HP initials printed near the front. The salesman had devoted all his time to Harry, not only because it was him but because selling one of those brooms would add a good commission to his salary; he explained that his final speed was almost 280 kilometers per hour maintaining a perfect balance. He grabbed the maintenance equipment that came with the broom ("maintenance equipment is free, for buying the latest model of Firebolt ") and took the parchment with the possession title, finding it strange that he liked its smell. The title was not really necessary as this model came with a completely new registration system: the seller had pointed his wand at the parchment after the purchase and at the same time his initials appeared on the broomstick and a small tattoo on his right shoulder representing the manufacturer's symbol on his HP initials. That system was failsafe to verify the broom owner and to be immune to any spell directed at the broom. There were other options like a bracelet or a ring, but he liked the tattoo.

He ran his hand over the waxed stick of the broom once again and deposited it on the kitchen table with extreme care. He had convinced himself to go to France as soon as he arrived from Diagon Alley to look for his stuff, or at least everything he could bring with him. He had almost nothing to wear because he had left almost everything in Toulon. He even had unforgivably left there some possessions such as the invisibility cape and the marauder's map, relics of his past (one of them a true Deathly Hallow) that he wanted to conserve.

He took his wand, hoping his apparition will work correctly, otherwise it would take him hours to reach his house in Toulon.

After a decent apparition on the outskirts of Dover, he registered to take the international Portkey to Paris, and from there he managed to appear near his neighborhood on the outskirts of Toulon, but a few miles downhill from his house. After another attempt he appeared quite close to where he had once appeared with Bill and Fleur. The whole journey had taken him almost half an hour, and most of that time he spent waiting to check in at Dover and then in Paris. As he walked down the street quite satisfied he remembered with a smile that just the boat trip across the English Channel (when he escaped from England he had not wanted to leave any magic track) had taken him more than twice as long.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and Harry eagerly breathed the aroma of the woods of the place. He was happy to be there, though he had the wand in his pocket, ready. The weather was so different that it gave him the impression of two different days, one cloudy and the other sunny. He greeted a neighbor who was washing his car and smiling he saw children passing by at full speed on their small bicycles. The fragrance of freshly cut grass put him in an even better mood.

Gee, how he would love to live there! He would do it if possible, he would be immensely happy. The scenery amazed him and he remembered how much he missed running around the neighborhood in the morning. He definitely wouldn't sell the house. He would keep it for a while and thus keep the dream of settle down there.

"Bon jour Jean!" This time he hardly noticed that a neighbor named Yannick was greeting him sitting in his little new mower. Harry greeted him back with an honest, mischievous smile when he saw him with the mowing machine that he insisted on buying and that his wife denied him.

"Bon jour Yannick," he greeted and added to himself. "Either he got divorced or he got into a good mess."

It was a beautiful and peaceful place, so charming that even Fleur, who is French, had congratulated him for having chosen that place. And also Hermione would love it too, as she used to vacation with his parents in France.

"And why the hell am I thinking of Hermione again?" he said to himself. But he smiled as he imagined her in that sunny place walking among the children on a bicycle or under the sun reading a book after a life full of suffering and privations just for having stayed always with him.

As he arrived at the house and watched the surroundings with the wand ready he remembered when his friend was wildly tortured by Bellatrix, or when she was injured in the Ministry when they went to rescue Sirius; he entered the house with a knot in her throat.

*****HP*****

By nightfall, Harry collapsed on the couch in the living room of his house in Godric Hollow. He was exhausted, somehow those short apparition trips between countries tired him, or maybe it was the energy he had to use for those apparitions. Anyway he was satisfied, he had spent a couple of hours visiting some of his neighbors and storing in his two backpacks (which an extension spell thanks to Hermione) his clothes and everything he had there to take with him to England.

He felt a huge contrast between his house in _La-Valette-du-Var_ and this one. In France he was happy and everything helped to feel that way: the landscape, the neighbors, going unnoticed, it felt like home. There, the memories overwhelmed him. Ginny and Hermione were right, that house made him feel bad. It gave him the impression that the memories were around his head without being able to get rid of them. Godric Hollow was a beautiful small town, but those months in Toulon, with its sunny days really amazed him.

He watched television for a long time enjoying a "muggle" beer and when it became night he quickly prepared some meat sandwiches that he devoured in front of the television set comfortably reclining in the leather armchairs similar to those of his other house in France. He had been nervous all day for the imminent try-out of the next day. And as he thought how great it would be if there were a television channel dedicated to Quidditch, he caressed his new broomstick, smiling excitedly: he was going to play his favorite sport after a long time.

An hour later Harry was sitting in the backyard when an owl came out of the darkness and handed him a letter which he opened, surprised. It belonged to the Weasley family, in which Molly asked him why he had gone to France and if he would return. She also said she wouldn't forgive him leaving again without telling anyone.

Harry looked at the letter in astonishment. How could they have known about his trip to France? Wasn't he a grown up wizard and could go and do whatever he wanted? Why were people always watching over him and protecting him? Until he remembered the international portkey. There was a reason why you must registered to use them. Somehow someone told them and they got alarmed. But he was here, and that's what he wrote answering in the same scroll, explaining that he went to look for some things he had left in his house in France.

Annoyed, he saw how the owl took flight and was lost in the blackness of a starry and fresh sky. He had taken to the garden one of the two armchairs of the living room and a small table for the beers and some sandwiches. He thought of spending the whole night outside because he didn't feel like being inside the house, and while he was opening his first beer he heard noises that rumbled inside the house.

"Damn it! And now what?" he insulted quietly, and headed to the front door. It was too late and it could be no one but the four or five people to whom he had given his address because of _Fidelius_. Thinking that perhaps Mrs. Weasley was too worried to wait for an answer on an owl, he opened the door and met Hermione face to face. Her hair was a little uncombed and was wearing a pair of worn jeans with a scratched sweater, all signs that she came from her home.

Harry was surprised and stood still in front of his friend. He asked her, frowning:

"Is something wrong, Hermione?"

In a couple of seconds her friend's face changed from surprise to awkwardness.

"Oh... no Harry... I only... well, Kingsley told me that you had gone to France and I thought... well that..."

"That I had left again?" he asked incredulously.

Hermione only lowered her eyes nodding, ashamed.

Harry smiled sadly. Perhaps he deserved so much mistrust.

"Well, I just went to get some things from France I hadn't brought."

Hermione looked a little more relieved, though Harry knew there was more. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." She hesitated a little and continued to speak so quickly that he could barely understand her. "Well, I'm glad you're still here. Goodbye Harry." The girl took him by the arm with her hand and left towards the entrance.

Harry hesitated for a few seconds, but he finally made up his mind. "Hermione..." He hadn't finished saying his name and his friend was already turned around looking at him.

"Do you want to... come in?" She was still a little angry and really hated that house, so he thought she wouldn't want to stay.

The girl did not answer. She was stuck in the place and was either troubled or on the edge of something. Harry began to worry, went to her and took her hand.

"Tell me."

"Many things, Harry." She replied with a very low voice and glassy eyes. Harry had always felt uncomfortable when people got emotional in front of him, but with her it was very different. He felt he had to do the impossible to comfort her.

"You can talk to me. You know that, don't you?"

After Hermione nodded, Harry drove her inside the house, but once there the girl slowed down. She looked very distressed.

"Bloody hell we're friends, Hermione, what do you think I would do to you?" He said, smiling.

The girl shook her head. "It´s not that Harry! You've suffered a lot in this house and here you disappeared in front of me when you escaped to France, I don't like being here!"

The house made her suffer? Just like him? Harry didn't understand, or maybe he did because he took her by the hand and said, "Me neither, Hermione. That's why I'm sleeping outside in the garden today. Come"

Once outside, she calmed down even though she was still anxious about something else. "I'll sleep on that couch, it's comfortable and I'm warm. I also like to see the stars."

Hermione looked up and smiled.

"Wait, I'll get you an armchair." After a while, he came back carrying one just like the other from the inside.

"Couldn't you... summon it with the wand?"

Harry shook his head as he set the chair close to his own. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Same as you, thank you." she said, and insisted. "Then is true, you are having trouble with your magic."

Harry closed his eyes leaning back and sighed. He didn't want to speak about that with her, but even with his eyes closed he felt Hermione's looks penetrating him; he knew her: she wouldn't give up.

"Not even a simple _accio_?"

"Apparently." Said, laconically. "In time it will come back, I'm sure."

"Yes, I know. And... How do you feel about it?" whispered her friend, fearful of Harry's reaction.

"Like a squib. I thought when I was able to cast the _Reducto_ to the death-eater, I wouldn't have any more problems, but it seems that my magic is unavailable most of the time."

"That's because our magic is directly related to us and our state of mind. There are spells that don't require much energy from within, but there are others that work mostly depending how we feel, such as defensive or attack spells. Anger is closely related to unforgivable spells, whereas our happy memories make the _patronus_ possible."

Harry thought it was a textual explanation of a book, but her tone of voice was full of anguish, she almost broke in last word. Fleur had explained him something similar, but hearing it from his friend was something else. After a few seconds of silence, the girl continued.

"Your... _Patronus_ doesn't work, does it?"

Harry shook his head with a sigh. He hated feeling so useless in front of her.

"Yes, that´s what I thought." She said, exhaling air from his lungs. "What a pity, I loved your _Patronus_."

They both looked at the stars. The night was just perfect, cloudless and cool, and no wind at all. Harry took a couple of beers and gave one to her.

"You're still mad at me, aren't you?"

Seeing Hermione's eyes still fixed on the stars, he tried again.

" I'll never forgive myself." She still didn't say anything.

"Have you read my letters?" Insisted Harry a few seconds later. He was tempting luck and didn't want his friend to explode into anger.

"Yes, every one of them."

"Oh." The boy raised his eyebrows, surprised. A few moments later he added:

"I would have very much liked to have had one of yours, but..."

"Leave it there, Harry." She interrupted him by raising one hand.

Hermione had a long drink of beer and then reclined in the comfort of the armchair, enjoying the starry night.

"And where have you been living? It's a nice place?" she asked, thoughtful.

"Yes, I liked it a lot. It's on the outskirts of Toulon, _La-Valette-du-Var_. It's a very nice neighborhood between forests and mountains. You would have liked it very much, if you could have come to visit me..."

Hermione interrupted him again by rolling his eyes. "Oh, yeah? And how could I have come to visit you?"

Harry took the beer and drank it. Maybe with alcohol he would stop being stupid.

"You were never good talking to girls." Said her friend looking at him, with a tiny half smile.

Harry smiled and shook his head. They laughed, and after a while some of the tension was gone.

A few minutes later Harry was still telling her about his "new" life in France, the landscape, the village of Gap, his neighbors. Hermione was watching him mindful and smiling. He was delighted, he really enjoyed talking to her about subjects that did not concern Voldemort, his scar or the horcruxes. She was a charming girl who liked simple things beyond her fascination with books or study. But something in her eyes had changed, a more intense look with a hint of admiration (something that made Harry feel shamed just to think about it), although perhaps it was related to the long absence of news.

But she changed abruptly as Harry began to tell her about the death-eaters; he now clearly noticed worry in her eyes, and something that the boy associated with guilt or regret.

"And when I was writing the letter the two of them surprised me from behind. Luckily Bill and Fleur appeared out of nowhere and saved me."

Hermione sat on the edge of the couch looking quite preoccupied.

"Hermione, are you all right?"

The girl nodded weakly.

Harry didn't want to annoy her, he didn't want to see her like that. But he had to try to comfort her.

"It was nothing." He hesitated, but then continued. "Everything´s ok, Hermione, it was only one..."

"No! It's not okay! How can you tell that?" She finally exploded. Now her friend stood up looking at him; she was almost yelling. Harry understood her anguish and her concern for him, but he still thought that something else was hurting her.

"Calm down, will you?" He said as softly as possible. "I'm fine, nothing happened to me."

"Nothing? You've gone to France to escape from all your horrible memories and guilt that was torturing you, and you say nothing happened to you?" Hermione was slowly getting upset, she was finally taking out everything she had kept inside.

"I..." Harry didn't know what to say. She decided it was best if her friend could unload on him, maybe that would help her.

"You could have died, Harry! You didn't even have your bloody wand with you when you were ambushed!"

"It didn't matter! I wouldn´t be able to use it anyway! Nothing happened to me Hermione, Bill and Fleur..."

"Exactly! They saved you." She was trying to get some air with desperation. "For Merlin´s sake, they could find you in time! What if they had taken a little longer to find you?"

Hermione were now was in panic at the thought of what would have happened to his best friend. Harry was stunned by the image of his friend, he saw her so sad and unhappy but at the same time she looked so pale and beautiful under the moonlight.

"Hermione, you will gain nothing with suppositions. It happened as it was meant to."

"No! It's not supposed to keep happening to you, Harry! Bill and Fleur were able to find out where you were! I read your letters waiting for you to tell me where you were! I couldn't do anything! Absolutely nothing! Do you understand?"

The boy's eyes opened immensely at his friend's confession. He was shocked, stunned. Then he was right, Hermione felt guilty? How was that possible?

"You couldn't do anything because I made one mistake in a letter to the Weasleys." Harry got out of his chair and knelt in front of her, she was sitting again "You didn't find me because I didn't make mistakes with your letters." He tried to smile at her to calm her anguish a little, but she failed miserably.

"My ass! I couldn't do anything for you! You looked for tranquility and peace and instead were almost killed! Twice!" Hermione tried to calm down but she couldn´t. "The death-eaters found you, Bill and Fleur, even Hogwarts found you! But I couldn´t!"

Her friend covered her face with her hands, frustrated. Only now did Harry understand why she felt so guilty, he should have guessed it. He would have felt exactly the same if it had happened the other way around, as both of them had protected and cared for each other since they saved her from the Troll during the first year at school.

"What would I do without you?"

Seeing her like that made him miserable as never before. Harry wrapped his friend in his arms and hugged her tightly. Suddenly he felt an enormous desire to comfort and protect her. Hermione put her arms around his neck and rested her face on her friend's shoulder, a little less distressed.

"Why don't they leave you alone, Harry?"

Harry rested his head over hers. His heart was pounding and he noticed that their embraced bodies were just perfect.

"Do not blame yourself. It was my fault for leaving."

"I thought after you defeated Riddle that you wouldn't need me anymore. And when you left me... you broke my heart." she said in a soft whisper, thoughtful with her eyes fixed on the stars. "I will always need you Harry. And I will always take care of you. You're always getting into trouble." Hermione said, smiling a little despite her melancholy.

Harry smiled back and sat just next to her and looked up at the sky, remembering something.

"Do you know where Polaris is? It's that bright, lonely star to the north." he said, pointing with his finger.

Hermione nodded softly.

"It is the polar star that our ancestors used as a guide so that they could orient themselves to the north."

"That star is you, Hermione. My guide and my complement. Like an eye in the sky always ready to take care of me."

Harry noticed that his friend's eyes were shining, but this time of tenderness and gratitude. She kissed him on her cheek warmly, and then turned her head to watch the stars again. And there the two remained, both sitting comfortably in the armchair and looking to the dark sky full of stars, until they fell deeply asleep.

After all, it had turned out to be a perfect night. The night when Harry was sure, as he had never been before about anything, that he had finally recovered his magic.


End file.
